SOCIAL TRAVESTIES 
. »-j-v.msfcrgsa ANA - . . •• - .. . ..._ 
WHAT THEY COST 
D. T. ATKINSON. M.D. SOCIAL TRAVESTIES 
AND WHAT THEY COST SOCIAL TRAVESTIES 
AND WHAT THEY COST 
BY 
D. T. ATKINSON, M.D. 
"Every violation of Truth is a stab at the 
health of human society. ' ' 
-Emerson. 
NEW YORK 
VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS Copyright 1916 
By VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY 
All rights reserved TO 
THOSE WHO BEAR THE BURDENS 
OF A SOCIAL PERVERSION 
THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS DEDICATED 
BY THE AUTHOR CONTENTS 
CHAPTER PAGE 
Introduction 9 
I Conventional Prudery and Its Results . 15 
II The Price We Pay for Ignorance ... 27 
III Innocence the Burden Bearer ... 37 
IV The Relation of Social Diseases to En- 
vironment 49 
V Potent Reasons for Harmful Social 
Conditions 71 
VI Unwholesome Social Standards and Dis- 
ease 91 
VII The Ounce of Prevention 107 
VIII The Franchise for Women and Its Rela- 
tion to Social Reform .... 119 
IX The Promise of Economic Responsiveness 139 INTRODUCTION 
The following pages, while containing a 
number of facts which may startle the reader, 
are not from the pen of one who takes the least 
hopeful view of things. While we cannot 
agree with Robert Browning that "all's right 
with the world," especially at a time when a 
dozen million men are devoting their greatest 
efforts toward destroying human life, we be- 
lieve that the desire to do right is instinctive 
in the human breast and that we are gradually 
evolving a system of ethics which will change 
the "brotherhood of man" from an empty 
phrase to an existing fact. As a God-given 
gift humanity has the tendency to grasp, even 
though slowly, opportunities which tend to 
mitigate wrongs and alleviate distress. Even 
among the most savage races this is evidenced 
by crude moral systems which are based upon 
inherent conceptions of right and wrong. 
9 10 
INTRODUCTION 
The world has never seen the economic strife 
with which it is now perplexed. This economic 
struggle has a deteriorating effect upon the 
morals of the rising generation because by it is 
built up an unwholesome environment. Our 
cities offer very little incentive for right living. 
They cause impulses, which are wholesome in 
themselves under natural conditions, to become 
dangerous. These impulses, acted upon by 
pernicious economic conditions, have increased 
immorality to the degree that it stands today 
the great cancer at the heart of our civilization. 
Annually it is yoking thousands upon thou- 
sands of children with an inheritance of disease 
which blights their lives and makes them a bur- 
den and a menace to society. 
"The time is ripe," says the report of the 
Vice Commission of Chicago, "for a united 
attempt to diminish venereal disease. To this 
end both sexes should be taught the social and 
personal dangers of the black plague. They 
should be taught that these diseases, like all 
other contagious diseases, may be innocently INTRODUCTION 
11 
acquired. Women, particularly, need such in- 
struction ; not only that they may protect 
themselves but that they may protect their chil- 
dren against danger. Both sexes should be 
instructed in sexual hygiene in all its relations. 
Innocence is too often dangerous ignorance." 
The above extract offers one of the keys to 
the alleviation of this social dilemma. The 
propagation of venereal disease has been fos- 
tered by an ignorance resulting directly from 
prudery. In reference to sex matters the 
press, the lecture platform and the pulpit have 
always been silent. In the last few years, 
however, has grown up a timid though almost 
universal movement with the intent of dissem- 
inating knowledge regarding the character of 
these diseases and their danger to the race. 
The press and the pulpit are giving up their 
reticence and, slowly but surely, are form- 
ing a nucleus for a great co-operative effort 
which will do much to mitigate the present in- 
tolerable conditions. 
The author has no panacea to offer, but he 12 
INTRODUCTION 
has attempted, in the limited space offered by 
this little volume, to outline some of the causes 
of inherited disease as well as some suggestions 
through which, he believes, these causes may 
at least be modified. Chapter I 
CONVENTIONAL PRUDERY AND 
ITS RESULTS SOCIAL TRAVESTIES AND 
WHAT THEY COST 
Chapter I 
CONVENTIONAL PRUDERY AND 
ITS RESULTS 
6 'TN the eyes of every physician, and indeed 
A in the eyes of most Continental writers 
who have adverted to the subject, no other 
feature of English life appears so infamous 
as the fact that an epidemic, which is one of 
the most dreadful now existing among man- 
kind, which communicates itself from the 
guilty husband to the innocent wife, and even 
transmits its taint to her offspring, and which 
the experience of other nations conclusively 
proves may be vastly diminished, should be 
suffered to rage unchecked." 
In these words Lecky in his "History of 
European Morals" expresses a truth which 
15 16 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
can be applied with equal severity to condi- 
tions on this side of the Atlantic. The ever 
present epidemic of social diseases is to-day 
the greatest menace to American society. Be- 
fore its ravages the deeds of Herod dwindle 
into insignificance. In the United States 
each year it destroys children by the tens of 
thousands and leaves thousands of others 
stricken with blindness which will last them 
for life. 
It is impossible accurately to estimate the 
number of American children that are ruined 
by this social stigma, but statistics show that 
over forty thousand of them die annually from 
this cause. Our most noted authorities state 
that these diseases are responsible for 30 per 
cent, of all blindness and for 80 per cent, of 
the blindness seen in children under two years 
old. Nor is this all the tragedy. Many in- 
fected children have no external manifesta- 
tions of disease other than that they are by 
heredity stunted, feeble-minded and generally 
unfit. Many of them, as they grow up, be- Conventional Prudery and Its Results 
17 
come dependent upon society, burden the poor 
houses, fill the jails and recruit the ranks of in- 
sane asylums. 
Ibsen in his "Ghosts" illustrates the awful 
consequence of these diseases. The ghosts, 
which he so graphically depicts, are really the 
image of a father's sins, gruesome phantoms 
which follow his offspring through life, which 
indelibly write their stamp upon him, ruin his 
life and bring him to an untimely grave. 
These ghosts of society are gnawing at the 
vitals of this nation. They are the strongest 
factor in a great degenerative process which, 
if not remedied, threatens irremediably to de- 
teriorate our racial standards. 
"The sins of the father shall be visited upon 
the children." Whatever may be our views in 
reference to the authority of the Bible, we must 
concede that this assertion of Moses is a real, 
living fact in the world to-day. For thirty- 
four centuries men have translated, tran- 
scribed and quoted this Mosaic message, but 
never until the last decade has its true signifi- 18 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
cance been forced upon them. Since 1905 
Schaudin and Wassermann, by scientific tests, 
have proven conclusively that venereal taint 
is often transmitted to the third generation. 
Thus did the Mosaic assertion become a proven 
scientific truth. Truly God spake unto 
Moses. 
There is no excuse for the taboo that has 
been put upon the mention of venereal dis- 
ease. A citation of facts cannot smirch us. 
Truth shines above all uncleanliness. When 
the facts relative to these diseases are discussed 
with truthfulness and candor, when the taboo 
of silence is removed, then and not until then 
will this secret danger lose much of its terror. 
Unfortunately we have a number of pseudo- 
moralists who still insist that social diseases 
are a just visitation of Providence and that 
they act as wholesome deterrents against vice. 
A well-known writer appeared in print re- 
cently with a declaration that the existence of 
these diseases was the greatest factor in re- 
taining the nation's virtue; and for that rea- Conventional Prudery and Its Results 
19 
son, he contended, they should not be com- 
bated. Such teaching is dangerous to soci- 
ety and belongs properly to the fourteenth 
century. The greatest suffering produced by 
this social stigma is not borne by the guilty 
but by the innocent. How many of its vic- 
tims are found every year in this country 
among infants less than a year old; hollow- 
eyed, misshapen imbecilic children who will 
some day become public charges! How many 
blameless little wives are suffering in silence; 
or are undergoing mutilation on. the operating 
table, because the diseases responsible for their 
condition were not properly combated! 
Now what is responsible for this alarming 
condition of affairs? This example of na- 
tional depravity is largely the result of ig- 
norance; an ignorance fostered by a senseless 
prudery which puts all sex matters under the 
ban of silence. We have refused to look sex- 
questions fairly in the face and we now pay 
these terrific dividends in blind, wizened and 
crippled children, in household tragedies and 20 
Social. Travesties and What They Cost 
blighted lives with their attendant misery and 
despair. 
This false modesty, this glossing over of 
facts, is one of the greatest menaces to society. 
Like the giant octopus it blackens the water 
for yards around it, blinding its victims, too 
often pure girls and innocent wives, until they 
fall within its grasp. Until the hush word 
that follows these diseases everywhere gives 
way to a frank openness of discussion, this oc- 
topus is destined to live and thrive. 
Dr. Prive Morrow is responsible for the 
statement that 75 per cent, of the women who 
are treated for venereal disease in the various 
hospitals of New York City are innocent wives 
who contract the disease from their husbands. 
Well qualified surgeons in every city of the 
country are asserting that the largest per cent, 
of the pelvic operations performed upon 
women and the greatest number of repeated 
involuntary abortions are due to these diseases. 
When a man with a venereal disease leads 
a bride to the altar the Rubicon of health and Conventional Prudery and Its Results 
21 
happiness for her has been crossed forever. 
She is transformed from a sweet innocent girl 
to a loathsome creature before the honeymoon 
is passed, and her foul disease, as Dr. Howard 
Kelley so graphically puts it "makes her in- 
nocent wifehood a source of pain and misery, 
often rendering motherhood impossible; or 
makes the child, if indeed one ever sees the 
light, a wizened monster, more fit for the grave 
than for the sweet happy human relationship." 
And yet scores upon scores of such cases oc- 
cur every day in the United States. Well may 
we ask "Is humanity degenerating?" How 
long shall our ignorance fostered by prudery 
continue? Are we to remain as silent as we 
are moribund ? Are we going to rend the bar- 
rier of hypocrisy and attack this evil after the 
same manner that we attack other evils or are 
we going to say with Louis XV of France, 
"After me the deluge"? 
For many years the press has been intense 
in its efforts to prevent the transmission of the 
white plague of tuberculosis but it has always 22 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
maintained a strict silence in reference to the 
black plague which carries more misery and 
despair into the homes of this land than tuber- 
culosis ever did. The records of a number of 
hospitals prove this to be true. Those of the 
Massachusetts General Hospital for one year 
showed that there were over twice as many 
cases treated for venereal disease as there were 
for all forms of tuberculosis, and this regard- 
less of the fact that venereal cases shun hos- 
pital treatment. 
This apathy of the press is due to the fact 
that society has always rebelled against the 
publication of anything which interfered with 
its conventions. Newspaper articles and 
books which have touched upon sex subjects 
have nearly always been put under the ban of 
censorship. Authors who have escaped the 
censorship of the press have found, almost in- 
variably, that the sentiment of the public was 
against them. Zola, the fearless Frenchman, 
made an attack on the evils of French society 
in a novel which referred to sex questions, but Conventional Prudery and Its Results 
23 
it cost him a fauteuil in the French Academy 
and awakened towards him an antagonism 
which eventually made it necessary for him to 
take refuge in England. Brieux' "Les 
Avaries" has done an incalculable amount of 
good where it has been produced though it still 
remains under press censorship in several coun- 
tries. Bjornson, while directing attention to 
Scandinavian social conditions, with their cor- 
ruption and prudish hypocrisy, was silenced 
by the most scathing criticism. 
Humanity has never invited reform. Inno- 
vations of thinking have always been viewed 
with much concern the world over. All great 
movements for the betterment of the race have 
had their martyrs. The people of Galilee for 
the fourth time said to Christ, "Thou art mad 
and hast a devil." The thoughts which He pre- 
sented had no place in the public mind because 
they were innovations and meant reform, re- 
form in which the mighty would be cast down 
and the lowly exalted. Spinoza's philoso- 
phy which, if accepted by his race, meant re- 24 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
form, led to his excommunication. A desire to 
reform mankind brought the flames to the feet 
of Savonarola and put the hemlock in the 
hands of Socrates. How vital the words of 
Milton, "Long is the way and hard, that out 
of hell leads up to life." Chapter II 
THE PRICE WE PAY FOR 
IGNORANCE Chapter II 
THE PRICE WE PAY FOR 
IGNORANCE 
TS there a valid reason why we should not 
disseminate knowledge regarding sexual 
diseases? They are everywhere about us and 
are spreading, so rapidly that they are a men- 
ace to every member of society regardless of 
his morals. Syphilis particularly is becoming 
a world-wide scourge because of the great 
number of cases which are acquired innocently. 
Fournier says that 25 per cent, of cases of this 
disease are contracted innocently, as "thou- 
sands of persons," he writes, "contract it just 
as they contract pneumonia and scarlet fever." 
A young man with this disease is a veritable 
walking pestilence. During the secondary 
stage the inside of his lips and his throat are 
covered with mucous patches laden with the 
27 28 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
specific poison. Should he kiss any one dur- 
ing this period of the disease, infection is al- 
most sure to follow. A drinking cup, a fork 
or a spoon which he has used may convey the 
disease to others. A single case, during this 
stage of the disease, has been known to be re- 
sponsible for several innocent infections. 
Shamburg, in the American Medical Jour- 
nal, reports an instance in which several young 
girls were infected with syphilis by a young 
man who had mucous patches under his lips. 
This unfortunate tragedy occurred in a select 
home during the performance of a game in 
which kisses were given as forfeits, a tragedy 
which will end only after the third and fourth 
generations have lived and died. 
The press has often laughed the doctor to 
scorn for his concern regarding the habit of 
kissing. If the writers of these comments 
were familiar with present day knowledge re- 
garding the dangers of this practice, and if the 
doctors themselves had been less prudish, and 
had braved public opinion by an open discus- The Price We Pay for Ignorance 
29 
sion of the facts instead of hinting at them, 
little more would be heard of these comments. 
A number of physicians have written arti- 
cles for the lay press on the subject of "Oph- 
thalmia neonatorum," but the plain facts, as 
a rule, have been handled with a timidity al- 
most amounting to prudery. Why should we 
gloss over truth? Why should we not state 
plainly that these ophthalmias in infants are the 
direct result of gonorrheal invasions of the 
genital tract of the mother, which have been 
transmitted to the child during the process of 
birth? Nearly twenty centuries ago Galen, 
one of the founders of medicine, wrote, "It is 
better to give a clear description than to fall 
back on miserable barbarous names which 
physicians have invented with great plenty." 
In the past the medical profession has been 
governed by traditions and ethics which have 
made them very reticent about teaching sex 
questions to the public. It will be noticed that 
where questions relative to sex matters have 
been discussed at all, the truths have been ob- 30 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
scured behind technical phrases which lay 
readers do not understand. 
In vindication of the medical profession it 
must be said, however, that within the last dec- 
ade there has been an awakening to the real- 
ization that the moral conditions of the world, 
with their attendant physical ills, justify us in 
throwing to the winds our much cherished 
prudery, and attacking sex evils as we attack 
other evils. Recent discoveries relative to 
sexual diseases have made it self-evident that 
truths regarding sex-questions have been 
veiled long enough behind elusive hints, and 
that we have as a result of this obscuring of 
facts a large per cent, of the world's misery. 
Is it any wonder that we have so many chil- 
dren with eyes blotted out, so many little men- 
tal and physical wrecks caused by inherited 
and transmitted disease? Our social condi- 
tions and the general morale of the country 
which is responsible for this toll of misery is 
moribund to the extreme. 
It is my desire to be acquitted of making The Price We Pay for Ignorance 
31 
statements not borne out by evidence. In sup- 
port of the above assertion let us look at some 
facts. Let us make a review of the medical 
and sociological literature regarding these dis- 
eases,-literature the result of the keen ob- 
servation and practical knowledge of physi- 
cians who have devoted their lives to the allevi- 
ation of this class of suffering. Let us make 
full allowance for the exaggeration which is 
often due to enthusiasm, and we still have a 
picture of moral conditions which are as star- 
tling as they are gruesome. 
"Over a million people in New York are 
suffering from one or another form of venereal 
disease. Over two hundred thousand are 
syphilitic while the balance carry with them 
the germs of gonorrhea. Matters are not 
much better in other large cities. Under 
these conditions how can any home be free 
from danger; how many are really free from 
the curse of this plague?" (Dr. William Lee 
Howard.) 
"A quarter of a million new cases of vene- 32 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
real diseases occur every year in New York 
City." This is the substance of a report of a 
committee of investigation appointed by the 
Medical Society of New York. 
"There is more venereal disease among the 
virtuous wives of our country than among the 
prostitutes." (Morrow in the Journal of the 
American Medical Association.) This ter- 
rible condition of affairs, he states, is due to 
the fact that "from 75 to 95 per cent, of the 
male population of our cities have gonorrhea 
sometime in their lives. Not more than 10 per 
cent, of these were ever cured." 
Fournier, perhaps one of the world's great- 
est authorities, has stated that "syphilis is now 
ten times graver than it was for our predeces- 
sors." 
Dr. Hollen says, "Syphilis clutches this very 
minute at the throat of the nation; we, in this 
country, are rapidly becoming syphilized. At 
the rate the disease is spreading it will not be 
so very long before the blood in every vein will 
be tainted. Certain other parts of the world The Price We Pay for Ignorance 
33 
are already syphilized, where hardly a person 
can be found who is free from the taint." 
Even though these assertions almost baffle our 
credulity, we cannot doubt that they are facts. 
We may go into the homes of thousands of 
the virtuous and upright in this country and 
we will find these diseases lurking there. 
They may be spread in all manner of ways. 
Hotel towels, used bed linens, combs, hair 
brushes, dishes in restaurants and at soda foun- 
tains, dirty razors and bath tubs in barber 
shops, public drinking cups and suits for rent 
at bathing resorts have been known, in hun- 
dreds of cases, to have conveyed the infection. 
Venereal diseases are many times more prev- 
alent than the public believe because, in the 
late stages, the complaints are found mas- 
querading under different names. All author- 
ities agree that this disease is the chief cause 
of general paralysis of the insane (Paresis) 
and some classify it as the only cause. Tabes 
dorsalis, also called locomotor ataxia, is 
nearly always traceable to neglected acquired 34 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
syphilis. Cystitis is often due to an involve- 
ment of the bladder from gonorrhea. This 
disease also attacks the joints causing "rheuma- 
tism." It is also responsible for many cases 
of unaccounted for blindness in both children 
and adults. 
A short time ago a mother brought a baby 
to me, an emaciated, repulsive little creature. 
In addition to a long series of deficiencies the 
mother said that it did not "notice." On ex- 
amining it, I found that it had a syphilitic in- 
volvement of the retina and optic nerve and 
was hopelessly blind. Its father admitted to 
me that he had been "a little wild," that he had 
been infected years before, and had taken 
treatment for two months only. How often 
the burden of profligacy is borne by innocence. Chapter III 
INNOCENCE THE BURDEN 
BEARER Chapter III 
INNOCENCE THE BURDEN 
BEARER 
INFANTS with an inherited syphilitic taint 
may or may not show manifestations of 
the disease. Frequently the baby looks nor- 
mal and remains apparently well for months 
or even years. When symptoms of the dis- 
ease exist at birth they generally are in the 
form of eruptions upon the skin. The skin 
is thick, has a reddish tinge and is of a shiny 
appearance. Later, the peculiar flushed ap- 
pearance gives way to a much darker shade, 
resembling tanned leather. Fissures occur in 
the skin, especially around the mouth, and are 
due to a cracking of its surface from tension. 
These may ulcerate, making hideous sores. 
Ulcerations may occur upon the fingers and 
may continue until the nails are lost. Skin 
37 38 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
sores and disease of the roots of the hairs in 
the scalp may leave the head almost denuded 
of hair. 
The bones are often affected later in life 
giving rise to all kinds of deformities. The 
long bones are sometimes enlarged at their ex- 
tremities. There is frequently complete loss 
of motion in the limbs, a condition sometimes 
called syphilitic paralysis. "Tiny Tim," the 
hero of Charles Dickens' "Christmas Carol" 
is a typical example of the child suffering with 
inherited syphilis. 
Coryza, or a discharge from the nose, is pres- 
ent in a large per cent, of syphilitic children. 
This discharge is at first clear but, because of 
ulceration in the nose, may soon become 
bloody. Often it is very irritating in charac- 
ter, keeping the skin about the nose and mouth 
perpetually excoriated. The teeth at the sec- 
ond dentition are pegged, and have a notched 
appearance, a peculiarity first noted by 
Hutchinson, hence the term Hutchinson's teeth. 
Ulceration may occur in the throat and mouth Innocence the Burden Bearer 
39 
and may continue to spread until the palate 
is literally eaten away. Hydrocephalus and 
other horrible distortions of the head are often 
directly traceable to this disease. 
The eyes are sometimes involved by ulcera- 
tions and infiltrations of the cornea. "Inter- 
stitial Keratitis," which is nearly always syph- 
ilitic, leads annually to blindness or partial 
blindness in thousands of American children. 
Deafness is a common sequence and when it 
occurs is usually complete. Many of the deaf 
mutes we see about us owe their pitiable plight 
to the morals of their ancestors. 
Infected children have feeble digestions, 
they often suffer with malnutrition. Fre- 
quently this is so pronounced that it terminates 
life in a few months. Inherited syphilis some- 
times involves the brain causing idiocy and 
paralysis. The liver is often enlarged. Acute 
nephritis resulting from inherited syphilis 
may be present and may end in death. 
We hear it said that nature is pitiless, but 
in the truest sense is nature cruel? By the 40 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
process of natural selection, that great physical 
law which protects posterity by weeding out 
the weak, our present race standards have been 
preserved. For thousands of years society, by 
her misdeeds, has polluted heredity and for as 
many years nature has been wisely at work 
purifying the race by destroying the unfit. 
As already noted it is estimated that in the 
United States blindness in children under a 
year old results directly from gonorrhea in 
from 60 to 80 per cent, of cases. Our prudery 
makes it difficult to obtain statistics but in the 
large European hospitals this has been done. 
The per cent, of gonorrheal blindness in Euro- 
pean children, as compared with all other 
causes of blindness, is thus estimated by the 
following observers: 
Per Cent. 
Reinhard, Germany, Austria, Denmark, 
Holland 40 
Claisse, Paris 46 
Magnus, Breslau 34 
Katz, Berlin 41 Innocence the Burden Bearer 
41 
Gonorrheal involvement of the eyes of the 
infant is invariably caused by a specific germ, 
the gonococcus, first discovered by Neisser in 
1879. The poison is transmitted to the child's 
eyes by the secretions of the mother at the time 
of birth. It usually appears about the third 
or fourth day manifesting itself by a suffusion 
of the mucous membrane with blood. Later 
the lids become swollen so that the eye cannot 
be seen. The discharge from between the lids, 
which is at first slight and of a watery charac- 
ter, soon becomes yellow, then creamy and 
tenacious. Ulcerations occur in the cornea 
which, if extensive, lead to blindness by the 
formation of scar tissue. 
This disease is no respecter of persons. The 
rich, the poor, the college graduate and illit- 
erate vendor are all alike susceptible to its rav- 
ages. Lying under the veneer of a decorous 
society are thousands of cases of chronic 
gonorrhea veiled by ignorance. With social 
conditions as they are to-day preventive meas- 
ures should be used in all newly born babies' 42 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
eyes. This should apply to the homes of the 
affluent as well as to the hovel. 
Among all the preparations which have been 
advocated for the prevention of ophthalmias 
in infants nitrate of silver stands first. Wood- 
ruff, the noted Illinois eye specialist, says: 
"A 1 per cent, solution of nitrate of silver in- 
stilled into the eye at birth is a sure preven- 
tive. Nitrate of silver is cheap; add to it the 
cost of containers and expense of distribution, 
and we can save babies' eyes at the rate of two 
for a cent. Compare this insignificant sum 
with the cost of blindness. It would cost 
twenty-five thousand dollars a year to save the 
eyesight of the two million babies born each 
year in this country, as against the twenty-five 
million dollars to educate and maintain those 
who have lost their eyesight through careless- 
ness and neglect." 
A report from Dr. Miller of Pittsburg, 
demonstrates the effectiveness of this preven- 
tive measure. He states that in one thou- 
sand, two hundred and sixty-two births occur- Innocence the Burden Bearer 
43 
ring during the last seven years in the various 
hospitals of the city, the nitrate of silver was 
used in the infants' eyes as a routine, and 
among these not a single case of ophthalmia 
neonatorum developed. In the Sloan Mater- 
nity Hospital in New York all babies' eyes 
are treated and for the last six years, with a 
total of four thousand, six hundred and sixty 
births, there has not been a single case of this 
disease. In the face of such evidence is it not 
criminal to neglect the use of this drug in the 
eyes of all new-born babies regardless of cir- 
cumstances ? 
Some States are demanding that physicians 
use this treatment in all new-born babies' eyes. 
Tennessee has a law making it a misdemeanor 
for a physician to omit the silver drops in any 
case, regardless of circumstances. Illinois re- 
cently has placed upon its statutes the follow- 
ing law: 
"Should any mid-wife or nurse having 
charge of an infant in this State, notice that 
one or both eyes of such infant are inflamed 44 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
or reddened at any time within two weeks after 
its birth, it should be the duty of such mid-wife 
or nurse having charge of such infant to re- 
port the fact in writing within six hours to the 
health officer or some legally qualified practi- 
tioner of medicine of the city, town or district 
in which the parents of the infant reside." 
"Section 511. Penalty. Any failure to 
comply with this act shall be punishable by a 
fine not to exceed $100 or imprisonment, not 
to exceed six months, or both." 
Some time ago a bill was placed before the 
legislature by Kansas providing for the free 
distribution of nitrate of silver drops to all 
physicians and mid-wives within the borders of 
the State. The bill passed the lower house 
after much heated discussion and was carried 
to the Senate. Here the Senators of that 
great commonwealth killed it, thus commem- 
orating themselves as stupendous paragons of 
stupidity, a stupidity which will rob hundreds 
of children of their right to vision. 
But, it may be said, we have no such condi- Innocence the Burden Bearer 
45 
tions in our part of the country. Let the one 
who believes this recall the number of cases of 
children "born blind" that he has heard of. It 
is safe to say that in 95 per cent, of these the 
cause has been gonorrhea. 
Well, it may be asked, why is it that we have 
blind babies when the doctors have a specific 
for combating the disease which produces 
the blindness? There is no doubt that nitrate 
of silver is a specific against infection, but doc- 
tors are sometimes careless, as evidenced by 
the legislation already mentioned, and do not 
use this preventive measure. Then, it must 
be remembered, that mid-wives attend a large 
per cent, of lying-in cases in this country. In 
Chicago, for instance, only 40 per cent, of ob- 
stetrical cases are attended by physicians. As 
a class mid-wives are illiterate. Most of them 
are foreigners whose very appearance would 
indicate their total ignorance of anything ap- 
proaching cleanliness. When gonorrheal oph- 
thalmia occurs in one of their cares the parents 
are told that the child got cold, or they had 46 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
waited too long before the mother's milk was 
put in its eyes, etc. Often the physician does 
not see the child until the cornea is hopelessly 
ulcerated and blindness is certain. Chapter IV 
THE RELATION OF SOCIAL DIS- 
EASES TO ENVIRONMENT Chapter IV 
THE RELATION OF SOCIAL DIS- 
EASES TO ENVIRONMENT 
f | unbiased investigator who seeks for 
the cause of the hundreds of thousands 
of children that are prevented by heredity and 
venereal infections from enjoying the "ina- 
lienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness," must arrive at the conclusion 
that one of its main causes lies in the ignorance 
of the masses regarding sex, and in moral and 
industrial conditions which foster commercial- 
ized vice. A thoughtful person cannot doubt 
that we have created an immoral social order 
through harmful economic conditions. All so- 
ciologists have classified economic conditions 
as being of first importance in the production 
of prodigal women. H. Schurtz, the great 
German sociologist, asserts that in all coun- 
49 50 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
tries looseness of morals follows naturally in 
the wake of economic conditions which are bad. 
"Of all the causes of prostitution, particularly 
in Paris, and probably in all large cities," says 
Parent-Duchalet, "none is more active than 
lack of work and the misery which is the in- 
evitable result of insufficient wages." 
Have not the economic conditions of our 
own country put millions of people in houses 
of one or two rooms surrounded by the most 
hopeless sanitary environment? Have eco- 
nomic conditions not made the death rate 
among poor children immeasurably greater 
than among the children of the rich? Thou- 
sands of our children are suffering with mal- 
nutrition, which is equivalent to starvation. 
In a little book by Edward F. Brown, pub- 
lished by the New York Health Department 
(1915), we find that: "An examination of 
one-third of the school population in New 
York City by the medical inspectors of the 
Health Department in 1913 disclosed 13,999 
cases of malnutrition. On the assumption Relation of Social Diseases 
51 
that the same ratio of this defect is to be found 
in the unexamined two-thirds, there would be 
approximately 40,000 children in our schools 
whose health is impaired owing to a malnour- 
ished system. Curiosity has led the author to 
inquire into the subject of malnutrition in 
other cities. Information was sought from 
forty-one of the largest American cities, but 
the reports were meager and unsatisfactory. 
Only fifteen of the cities reported the num- 
ber of children examined and the number 
found malnourished." Mr. Brown tabulates 
the course of malnutrition in children as fol- 
lows: 
I. Social: 
a. Living in rooms without windows 
or sunlight. 
b. Lack of bathing facilities. 
c. Lack of ventilation. 
d. Employment out of school hours. 
e. Unsanitary school conditions. 
f. Congenital debility. 52 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
II. Individual: 
a. Food: insufficiency, unsuitabil- 
ity. 
b. Injurious sleeping arrange- 
ments. 
c. Insufficient sleep. 
d. Want of cleanliness. 
e. Various diseases. 
It is a self-evident fact that poverty is re- 
sponsible for much of the disease and crime we 
see about us. The miserable squalor of some of 
the houses of our poor creates an environment 
which, when coupled with the necessary neg- 
lect which attends the children of the poor, is 
a national school for vice in all its forms. 
What circumstances could be more conducive 
to a child's downfall than these? 
Charles Henderson, Professor of Sociology 
in the University of Chicago, and one of the 
profoundest thinkers of this country, says: 
"Long before the man selects his associations 
his surroundings may have made a choice for Relation of Social Diseases 
53 
him. The poor widow with five children 
never voted to place a saloon or brothel in the 
residence district; but, being poor, she must 
take rooms in a district where rents are low, 
and there are saloons and brothels. Her chil- 
dren are reared in a neighborhood where mod- 
esty is frost-bitten, purity mocked, honesty de- 
spised as weakness, public opinion favorable to 
bribery. Here crime is a natural product." 
Mary Anton, the Jewish sociologist, in her 
book, "The Promised Land," tells of having 
been compelled to live on Wheeler Street in 
Boston because of the poverty of her parents. 
Wheeler Street is a small alley intersecting 
with Corning Street, the principal thorough- 
fare in what was at that time the most vicious 
neighborhood in the city. This is but one ex- 
ample of thousands of children whose parents 
have been driven near such neighborhoods be- 
cause of the cheapness of the rents. As a mat- 
ter of consequence many of these children, very 
early in life, become acquainted with vice in 
its worst form. The law of environment 54 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
makes such quarters veritable traps to chil- 
dren of both sexes. 
Luther Burbank in "The Training of the 
Human Plant" asks, "Can we hope for nor- 
mal, healthy children if they are constantly in 
ugly environment? Are we not reasonably 
sure that these conditions will almost swamp a 
well balanced normal heredity and utterly over- 
throw and destroy a weak though otherwise 
good one?" 
An illustration cited by all writers on the 
subject of eugenics to prove the significance 
of heredity is that of a New York family, 
"The Jukes," the direct descendants of a man 
who served in the Continental Army. Among 
his progeny, according to statistics formu- 
lated by Dugale, were to be found sixty thieves, 
fifty prostitutes and forty women who in- 
fected their husbands and four hundred other 
men with syphilis. While we must consider 
that heredity may have been a factor in pro- 
ducing this doleful family history, we should 
not forget that these statistics were gathered Relation of Social Diseases 
55 
by a man who saw the world only through the 
eyes of the eugenist. In his report he does 
not take note of the fact that these people were 
the victims of the most abject poverty and that 
most of them grew up in the slums in a veri- 
table stratum of crime. Slum children, asso- 
ciating with criminals at an early age, become 
criminals naturally. In the early days of this 
country there were to be found many instances 
of white children who had been captured by 
the Indians who became Indians in instinct 
and habits, and who could not be induced to 
reclaim civilization. If the depravity of the 
Jukes had been due solely to heredity, would 
not the infusion of blood, the result of many 
marriages, have overcome the defect in the one 
ancestor from which eugenists trace this role 
of crime? 
Living in criminal environment with an at- 
mosphere of immorality, for which poverty is 
largely responsible, the children of this fam- 
ily became irretrievably lost before their minds 
had even begun to mature. In a different at- 56 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
mosphere with correct environment the op- 
posite result, in nearly every instance, would 
have been obtained. From a eugenic stand- 
point the Royal families of Europe and the 
European nobility, from a series of consan- 
guineous marriages and the marriages of defec- 
tives, are the worst the world has ever seen, 
but we do not have in history many examples 
of prostitutes with royal or noble blood. And 
why is this? Simply because poverty has not 
provided, in these people, its impetus to de- 
generation. In the case of the "Jukes" the 
rational conclusion is that the degenerate tend- 
encies which this family exhibited were the re- 
sult of economic rather than eugenic causes. 
Frank P. Walsh, Chairman of the Commis- 
sion on Industrial Relations says: "When 
we divide our forces into three great battal- 
ions: those working for better economic con- 
ditions, those working for better social condi- 
tions, and those working for better moral 
conditions, we make a monumental blunder. 
Lines cannot be drawn between the economic, Relation of Social Diseases 
57 
social and moral life of the people. They rise 
or fall together and economic conditions al- 
ways dominate. The greatest influence on 
life is produced by environment. The only 
factor which enters into environment is the eco- 
nomic factor. The income of a family abso- 
lutely determines its place of living, its man- 
ner of living and its interpretation of life. 
Persons will vary in mental type, in breadth 
of vision, in clarity of view, in outlook on life 
and its hopes and destinies. That is inevitable. 
But these, too, are tempered by environment." 
Lombrosa, the world's greatest criminal an- 
thropologist, claims that 97 per cent, of fallen 
women are not essentially bad women but are 
victims of unfortunate circumstances. Dr. 
Flora Pollack of the Johns Hopkins Dispen- 
sary has stated that, in Baltimore alone, from 
eight hundred to one thousand children be- 
tween the ages of one and fifteen are vene- 
really infected every year. "Among these the 
largest number are near the age of six." 
These children, as a matter of course, came 58 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
from homes in which poverty has reached its 
most depressing level. 
That the number of the women of the under- 
world is regulated to the greatest extent by 
economic conditions no one will dispute. This 
fact is undeniable. Women are underpaid. 
In many of the large cities the salaries of 50 
per cent, of the female workers are not enough 
to keep soul and body together. Our closest 
observers, our greatest sociologists, always take 
note of this. Dr. Alvin Johnston appointed 
by the New York committee of fifteen to in- 
vestigate the causes of the social evil reported 
that in a certain great department store in 
Boston the wrapping girls got the beggarly 
salary of $2.50 per week. These, too, are girls 
at the most susceptible age, the age when the 
craving is strongest for decent clothes which 
they see the more fortunate wear. 
How many of our fallen women are the 
products of such department stores, of shops 
where they work and skimp and try to be hon- 
est and then gloomily fail! These are the vic- Relation of Social Diseases 
59 
tims of the greed of men who have achieved 
financial success, that great edifice into which is 
put the lives of so many half-starved, hollow- 
eyed, broken-hearted and helpless women. 
It is not the tyranny of fashion but the most 
dire necessity which causes so many women to 
sidestep the paths of virtue. Jane Addams, in 
"A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil," 
refers to the case of a girl in Chicago who, after 
her feet were touching the sidewalk, "sold out 
for a pair of shoes," and this only after she had 
saved for weeks in a vain effort to put aside 
enough money with which to get a pair legiti- 
mately. There was no alternative. She had 
to dress well or lose her position, a disaster 
which, to her, would have meant carbolic acid, 
or the lake. 
About a year ago the press gave an account 
of a young woman, employed as cash girl in 
one of the largest department stores in Chicago, 
who had been arraigned before the courts for 
stealing a sum of money. Evidence of her 
guilt was easily established. She had been seen 60 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
taking the money and admitted that she took 
it. In defense of her act she gave an itemized 
statement of what her living cost her as com- 
pared with her salary. In this statement she 
allowed herself the most meager amounts for 
the bare necessities of life, with no provision for 
amusements of any kind. She ate ten-cent 
lunches and cooked her own breakfast and sup- 
per on a little gas stove in her bedroom. She 
did her own washing, with the exception of her 
shirt waists, which she sent to the laundry, and 
when the bill for this was paid, with ten cents 
a day left for carfare, she had not enough 
money to satisfy her landlady, so had to choose 
between being put into the streets, selling her 
womanhood or stealing. 
This is only one of the thousands of cases 
that occur each year among unfortunate young 
women who are driven to the last extremity of 
despair and who find the "easier way." While 
engaged in a struggle to keep soul and body 
together the mill closes, the sweat shop is short 
of orders and abandons work indefinitely, the Relation of Social Diseases 
61 
position in the store is lost and starvation stares 
her in the face. Already broken in spirit it is 
not a wonder that rebellion asserts itself and 
that the tide carries another victim onward. 
The young women in the department stores 
of our larger cities come in contact daily with 
well-dressed young men whose invitations to 
dinners and the theater often lead them into 
treacherous paths. In this way their natural 
love of pleasure is exploited by the sons of the 
affluent; young men whose money is not only 
their own curse but a blight to the lives of 
others. How can we wonder that a girl 
accepts these invitations, that she should long 
for an evening away from a dingy room in the 
company of a young man. The attraction of 
one sex for another is one of the strongest of 
instincts, and is not amenable to the abnormal 
attitudes of living to which poverty gives 
origin. 
A misstep by a girl living under these con- 
ditions is often encouraged by the fact that she 
comes in contact so often with the woman of 62 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
easy morals who acts as an accomplice to some 
Don Juan of malicious design. That this is a 
common occurrence is borne out by Jane 
Addams of Chicago. Even in these cases the 
girl's downfall must be laid at the door of eco- 
nomic conditions which make her so accessible 
to the procurist. 
The disdainful injustice which has always 
fallen to the lot of erring women has been a 
fruitful source in keeping full the ranks of the 
outcasts. When a poor girl makes a mistake 
what possible chance has she to reform? 
Christ forgave Mary Magdalene but the door 
of hope is forever closed to the Magdalene of 
our own times. The attitude toward her, of 
women in general, is cruel in the extreme. 
There is no open-hearted kindness for her; she 
is snubbed and shunned by her more fortunate 
sisters and becomes the mark, far too often, for 
calumny and vituperation. Driven from those 
who once were her friends she is forced even 
lower into degradation and soon has a police 
record, and when this record is once established Relation of Social Diseases 
63 
it follows her like a gloomy specter, even to the 
grave. As a police suspect she is never free 
from the possibility of arrest regardless of how 
honest her intentions to lead a better life. 
A woman's fall is usually nothing but a mis- 
take, a mistake, fostered by conditions over 
which she has no control. She is simply un- 
fortunate. Our treatment of her is inhuman 
and un-Christian. If the tenets of Jesus were 
carried out in this one particular the world 
would be immeasurably benefited and the 
greater part of the social evil would die a 
natural death. 
The immodest dress of the present day, the 
lascivious exhibitions upon the stage and the 
obscene literature are responsible for a con- 
dition of loose morals among the young which 
paves the way to the contraction of venereal 
disease. Some of our present-day plays would 
have shocked and scandalized society twenty 
years ago. How often these performances 
have as their leading feature women whose 
only attraction is that they have become no- 64 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
torious. The tinge of virtue with which a play 
of this character is usually flavored is inter- 
mingled with such a voluptuous allurement of 
the sexes that the moral passes entirely over the 
heads of the younger members of the audience, 
who leave the theater with their youthful im- 
agination intoxicated to a dangerous degree. 
A great deal of the vice of to-day could be 
directly traced to the cheap theaters which pro- 
duce these sordid plays. 
The press, especially in the larger cities, does 
its share in corrupting youthful morals by 
sending into the homes a type of literature 
which is depraving in its tendency. Accounts 
of adulterous escapades among the idle rich 
usually get the most prominent pages and even 
the headlines, and the personal column, which 
is little more than a vice directory, is often in 
evidence. Fortunately this nauseous fact is 
receiving the attention of the more decent news- 
papers as evidenced by the following extract 
from a Cleveland, Ohio, paper: "The public 
should demand clean advertising in news- Relation of Social Diseases 
65 
papers. The newspapers should, and sooner or 
later they must, admit the reasonableness of this 
demand and exclude from their advertising 
columns the filthy and the loathsome. No self- 
respecting citizen could possibly go about with 
a pocketful of indecent circulars, dropping one 
wherever he might call. Such a person would 
soon find himself regarded for what he was- 
morally unclean and a disgusting object of 
general suspicion. Is there any essential dif- 
ference between such a man and a newspaper 
that befouls its columns with unclean advertise- 
ments? If there is, we fail to see it. It is time 
that there was a public awakening on this sub- 
ject, and there is bound to come such an awak- 
ening." 
Another great cause of immorality among 
the young which often leads up to the contrac- 
tion of venereal disease is to be found in the 
fact that young people get almost no instruc- 
tions in reference to sex matters. How many 
of them are allowed to go through boarding 
schools and colleges with absolutely no instruc- 66 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
tions regarding the physiology of their own 
sex. Even in their text books on physiology 
sex subjects come under the ban of prudery 
and are very carefully omitted. 
Thoughtful persons the world over are wak- 
ing up to the fact that our neglect in reference 
to sex teaching is wrong; that we have been 
criminally silent. This is the substance of a 
lecture on education and sex recently delivered 
by the Bishop of London. "The policy of si- 
lence in reference to questions of sex has failed 
disastrously," says ex-President Eliot of 
Harvard. 
There can be no doubt that our neglect in 
imparting instructions to children regarding 
their sexual lives is responsible for much of the 
misery we see about us. The attitude which 
some parents maintain toward their children 
regarding sex is a mistake which is too often 
paid for by broken hearts and ruined lives. 
To send boys and girls out into the world 
with no sex knowledge is little short of crim- 
inal. How much shame, misery and suffering Relation of Social Diseases 
67 
are due to this lamentable mistake every doctor 
knows, but the doctor comes in contact with the 
frightful results which are reaped by these un- 
fortunate victims of ignorance after it is too 
late. Young people in all our cities, and often 
in the country, are surrounded by conditions 
which stimulate emotions that not only perplex 
them, but drive them into treacherous paths, if 
the true significance of these emotions is not 
explained to them in a sensible and wholesome 
manner. A parent who maintains a pious si- 
lence about matters of sex with the belief that 
"the child will learn soon enough" is guilty of 
indomitable ignorance. Many boys and girls 
reap the results of this ignorance by running 
into danger because they did not so much as 
know that it existed. Much of this misery 
could have been saved by a little careful instruc- 
tion imparted by the proper person at the 
proper time. 
We must not overlook alcohol and the part it 
plays in the transmission of venereal disease. 
There can be no doubt that one of the greatest 68 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
dangers to continence in both sexes lies in the 
habit of drinking. M. Forel of Paris found 
upon a review of statistics the result of a close 
observation extending over many years that 
75 per cent, of his cases of venereal disease was 
directly traceable to the abuse of alcohol. Al- 
cohol stimulates the sexual instinct and de- 
stroys the powers of the will. It predisposes 
to venereal disease for the reason that one un- 
der its influence is demoralized and dispos- 
sessed of the prudence which would be his pro- 
tection at other times; besides by lowering the 
natural vitality of the body infection becomes 
more certain. CHAPTER V 
POTENT REASONS FOR HARMFUL 
SOCIAL CONDITIONS Chapter V 
POTENT REASONS FOR HARMFUL 
SOCIAL CONDITIONS 
ONE reason why we see so many cases of 
infant blindness is because men infected 
with gonorrhea are prone to think lightly of 
their condition. When its early manifesta- 
tions have subsided they consider themselves 
well. As a rule they give up treatment in a 
few months. The doctor may have insisted 
that treatment be continued but many of them 
soon reach the conclusion that the doctor is 
mercenary. They see some one else who had 
only been treated for two or three months and is 
apparently cured, and they unhesitatingly fol- 
low his example. The result is that the disease 
lies dormant for months and even years, and 
one day an innocent, unsuspecting wife is in- 
71 72 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
fected and her first child, if not scientifically 
treated, is left blind for life. 
The advertisements of charlatans in the 
newspapers trap many young men who should 
have the services of a skilled physician. From 
the charlatan the patient gets treatment which 
is of no value whatever and often he is dis- 
missed as cured when the disease is still viru- 
lent. Physicians of this type are worse than 
human vultures. They are not restrained by 
any scruples and they are usually as ignorant 
as they are unscrupulous. Many a child has 
the maltreatment which these men adminis- 
ter to thank for relegation to life-long blind- 
ness. 
It is gratifying to note that the press is be- 
coming alert to the effort to have all news- 
papers eliminate the harmful advertisement of 
the charlatan. Samuel Adams recently ex- 
posed quackery in the pages of Collier's 
Weekly and a number of other writers have 
called attention to the unprincipled methods 
which these men employ and to the dangers of Harmful. Social, Conditions 
73 
neglecting the proper treatment of venereal 
disease. 
The patent medicine evil is responsible for 
much chronic venereal disease in men. A large 
per cent, of drug stores do counter prescribing 
for this character of cases. Many a man has 
just cause bitterly to regret the day he dropped 
by his favorite drug store to be told by the 
affable pharmacist that his ailment was of no 
consequence, and to receive the assurance that a 
simple remedy would relieve him entirely. 
Hundreds of pharmacists are treating venereal 
diseases who know no more of their real nature 
than the family grocer does. 
The reputable pharmacists are usually con- 
scientious gentlemen who are entitled to our 
most respectful regard, and it must be said 
in their behalf that, as a class, they are opposed 
to counter prescribing. In almost every pro- 
fession, however, some men are found who will 
do almost anything for money. The patient 
who is unfortunate enough, or foolish enough, 
to rely upon what such a pharmacist tells him 74 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
usually reaps a rich harvest of woe in after 
years. The false confidence with which he is 
inspired by the druggist friend causes him to 
think lightly of his condition and he neglects 
the appropriate means of finding relief. The 
result is that his disease lapses into an almost 
unnoticed chronic type. In this condition he 
leads some innocent unsuspecting woman to 
the matrimonial shambles with a promise to 
protect her and to make her happy. 
A young man came to me some months ago 
with a suspected gonorrheal involvement of the 
eye. He gave a history of a specific invasion 
three years previous which had not been cured. 
He also stated he was going to take something 
for it, as he intended to be married soon to 
"The best girl on earth." I told him that he 
was a criminal to think of marrying until re- 
peated microscopical tests proved that he had 
been cured beyond doubt, and outlined the re- 
sults which would inevitably follow such an 
action; the pelvic abscesses, the chronic ill 
health of his wife and the possibility of blind- Harmful Social Conditions 
75 
ness for his children. This patient was a man, 
seemingly intelligent, who holds a responsible 
position with a large corporation. Despite 
this appearance of intelligence he never visited 
a physician and was taking a patent medicine 
sold by a drug store when he married the "best 
girl on earth." The world is infested with men 
like this one and it is the duty of the country 
to protect the unsuspecting, innocent young 
women whom they would victimize. The State 
has no right to license such men to murder their 
wives or to put out the eyes of their children. 
The Government of this country must soon 
see the necessity of an effort to combat venereal 
disease for economic as well as for moral 
reasons. Dr. Holten in the Journal of the 
American Medical Association states that in 
Prussia "the increased expense and decreased 
income caused by venereal disease amounts to 
$21,600,000." A report of the New York As- 
sociation for the blind says: "The official 
census of New York State (year 1906) gives 
the total of 6,200 blind persons in the State. 76 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
Ten per cent, of this blindness (or 620 blind 
persons) was due to ophthalmia neonatorum 
(an eye disease contracted at birth from a gon- 
orrheally infected mother)." Dr. Richard 
Tivnen of Chicago, in speaking of this report, 
says: "The same observers present tables 
from eleven schools for the blind throughout 
the United States and Ontario showing the 
proportion of children admitted during the 
year 1907 who had lost their sight from oph- 
thalmia neonatorum. These percentages show 
a maximum of 50 per cent, and a minimum of 
12% per cent, of cases of loss of sight from 
this disease." This report does not include the 
hundreds of other cases of blindness of various 
forms that are the direct result of syphilis. 
In the face of facts like these does it not seem 
imperative that we should have a law requiring 
contracting parties to be examined by a phy- 
sician appointed and paid by the State before 
they can procure a license to marry, and that 
the public should get behind that law and see 
that it is enforced? In Norway a man must Harmful Social Conditions 
77 
have a certificate of good health from a 
reputable physician before he can obtain a mar- 
riage license. In North Dakota the applica- 
tion of a male for a license to marry must be 
signed by three physicians before it can be is- 
sued. A very similar bill was put before the 
legislature of Ohio some time ago, and though 
it failed to pass the Senate, it indicates that the 
public are beginning to exhibit an unrest in 
reference to this character of conditions social. 
Some time ago I talked to a body of women 
about the advisability of the State requiring an 
official certificate of health of both sexes be- 
fore marriage. A number of women present 
were emphatic in their opinions that to require 
such a certificate from a woman was an insult 
to her character. Is there a valid reason why 
men alone should be examined? Even in a 
great movement like this we should not resort 
to class legislation. If all women were re- 
quired to have a certificate from a female phy- 
sician appointed by the State it would work no 
real hardship upon them and could in nowise 78 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
reflect upon their character. Besides, the es- 
sential purpose of such a movement would be 
to protect them and the children they expect 
to bear. We must not forget, either, that 
every year thousands upon thousands of women 
acquire social diseases innocently. The widow 
of a profigate husband, however innocent, 
should not be permitted to transmit a taint 
which her husband gave her with his name. 
I have a case in mind which emphasizes this 
point. Three years ago I had as a patient a 
young divorced woman, to all appearances an 
estimable person, who had been infected with 
syphilis by a dissolute husband. She was suf- 
fering with a number of bad specific ulcers in 
her throat, and at about the time these healed 
she married a young man of good character 
and of a good family. She has already had 
two miscarriages, due to the disease, and, should 
she carry a child to a term within the next year 
or two it will positively be syphilitic. This 
young woman gave me as an excuse for her 
act the time-worn maxim that "Love is blind." Harmful Social Conditions 
79 
Now who has the temerity to say that this 
young man should not have been protected? 
The laws of some States requiring persons con- 
templating marriage to submit to a physical ex- 
amination which are now in force are but fore- 
runners of stricter laws which every State will 
pass before many years. 
What great economic value compulsory ex- 
amination before marriage would have. Dr. 
Thos. Woodruff of Illinois says, "The cost of 
maintenance to the United States of the de- 
pendent blind is about $10,000 per capita 
through life. It costs this country all of 
twenty-five million dollars per year in taking 
care of the blind. Then there is the matter of 
unemployment and reduced earning capacity. 
The average wage of the blind men who are 
employed is $7.00 per week; that of the women 
about $3.00 per week." In view of these star- 
tling facts how can the Government much 
longer keep "hands off" the venereal question. 
Government control of venereal disease can 
be made a success in the United States. The 80 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
efforts of other governments to control these 
diseases have been dismal failures because such 
efforts have been directed toward control 
through legalized prostitution and medical in- 
spection of inmates of resorts. And yet how 
many times our towns and cities have been 
urged by unthinking men to repeat this monu- 
mental blunder. A city or a State which gives 
legal recognition to any form of vice insults the 
moral sense of the decent element in society and 
inseparably links itself with immorality by 
such recognition. 
The idea which some persons hold in refer- 
ence to the good which may be accomplished by 
legalized police regulations is fallacious in the 
extreme. Statistics have shown that countries 
which harbor legalized prostitution have an in- 
creased number of venereal cases. The cause 
for this may readily be seen. It is obviously 
impossible to obtain the services of a good 
physician for these examinations because this 
character of work besmirches his reputation. 
The very poorest type of medical talent is pro- Harmful Social Conditions 
81 
cured. A physician's certificate, regardless of 
by whom given, is worthless because disease 
may manifest itself an hour after an examina- 
tion. Medical inspection and certificates of 
health are equivalent to posting a sign before 
a house infected with smallpox saying "pass in, 
there is no danger." 
Medical examinations leave the impression 
that such houses are free from contagious dis- 
ease. They create vicious impulses and enor- 
mously swell the number of the patrons of the 
immoral houses. These examinations, or any 
other phase of legal regulation, make the young 
man assume that prostitution is a needed insti- 
tution; that it exists because it is necessary to 
provide the means of appeasing the sexual in- 
clinations of men. Laws requiring an arbi- 
trary examination of prodigal women, so popu- 
lar in European countries, is the most perni- 
cious type of class legislation. What right has 
the law to subject a woman, however low, to 
such an indignity and allow her clientele to 
pass by unchallenged ? What would be thought 82 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
of an order to our port physicians to examine 
only women immigrants? Such a measure 
would be equally as just as medical examina- 
tions of the victims of prostitution for any other 
reason than for the hospitalization of infected 
cases. 
That regulation does not diminish disease has 
been proven beyond question of a doubt. On 
the contrary it increases the number of infec- 
tions by inciting habits of thought which tend 
toward immorality. France and Germany 
have had regulation of all places of ill repute 
for years, and statistics prove conclusively that 
in these countries the venereal disease problem 
is now the greatest to be found in the civilized 
world. 
The Contagious Disease acts passed by the 
British Parliament put twelve districts in Eng- 
land and two in Ireland under regulation with 
sanitary inspection. After a thorough trial ex- 
tending over a period of seventeen years the act 
was suspended as a failure both from a moral 
and health standpoint. Harmful Social Conditions 
83 
France is awakening to the fact that in this 
question she has been deluded. "Two mem- 
bers of the French Government in 1911, M. 
Cruppi, Minister of Justice, and M. Augog- 
neur, Minister of Public Works, were aboli- 
tionists ; a parliamentary group of not less than 
eighty abolitionists was formed in 1911 and we 
are told that 'all the great chiefs of the medical 
faculties and all the important heads of the 
hospitals have now become converted to abo- 
lition.' It is thus perhaps not too much to say 
that the beginning of the end can already be 
discerned." (From a report edited by Edwin 
Seligman, Professor of Political Economy, 
Columbia University.) In 1888 the Italian 
Government abolished the regulation system 
of immoral houses which had been in force for 
thirty years. In 1870 St. Louis established a 
system regulation which was given up as a total 
failure in 1874. 
Well, then, it may be asked, what can the 
Government do? It can make the transmis- 
sion of venereal disease a felony punishable by 84 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
imprisonment. The thief and the murderer is 
no more dangerous to society than the man or 
the woman who distributes social diseases. Dr. 
Isadore Dyar of New Orleans reported to the 
Brussels Conference on the Prevention of 
Venereal Disease the case of a young woman 
who carried a book in which she enrolled the 
number of men she inoculated with syphilis. 
"When I first saw her," he stated, "she de- 
clared the number had reached two hundred 
and nineteen." How much suffering will fol- 
low in the wake of this woman. Would it not 
be infinitely better to confine her in a special 
hospital where she would be treated until 
cured? 
The Government can demand that the treat- 
ment of venereal disease be made compulsory. 
A fact known to all physicians is that many 
cases of venereal disease become chronic be- 
cause the victims have not enough money with 
which to meet the expense of correct medical 
attention. From an economic standpoint, if 
for no other reason, the Government should Harmful Social Conditions 
85 
establish hospitals and clinics where indigents 
who suffer with these diseases may be treated. 
In Finland and Sweden the treatment of 
venereal disease is at the public expense, and is 
compulsory. Go into any of their hospitals 
devoted to the treatment of venereal disease, 
hospitals established for economic reasons, and 
there you will find hundreds of unfortunate 
men and women receiving the benefit of the 
best treatment that science can give. Why? 
To save the country a greater burden of ex- 
pense than the hospitals are. These patients, 
while under treatment, are in the wards and are 
harmless. But think of the disease one hun- 
dred such persons would create if they were al- 
lowed to go untreated. Think of what it 
would mean to the innocent wives, and children 
yet unborn. Think of the chronic invalidism, 
the pain and humiliation, the mutilating opera- 
tions upon innocent women that one hundred 
such cases would cause. Think of the children 
with inherited disease, the blindness, the mental 
deficiency, that would follow in the wake of 86 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
one hundred venereally infected and untreated 
patients. 
At the International Conference at Brussels, 
Dr. Commenge of Paris estimated that the 
number of infected women who were sent to 
the hospital of St. Lazare to be treated for 
syphilis between 1887 and 1897 was 15,095. 
It is safe to assume that this hospital treatment 
prevented at least one hundred thousand new 
infections by the treatment of these women. 
One hundred thousand such infections would 
probably have been responsible for several hun- 
dred thousand diseased children. 
A recent report of the New York County 
Medical Society states that there are only 
twenty-six beds provided by the city of New 
York for the reception of venereal cases and 
these are on Blackwell's Island. Should not 
the Government do what the various municipal- 
ities have failed to do; provide a place where 
venereal diseases may be treated and thus miti- 
gate the spread of these diseases? 
A great many earnest physicians and laymen Harmful Social Conditions 
87 
are beginning to demand that indigent venereal 
cases be taken care of by the State. The pub- 
lic conscience, so long asleep, is beginning to 
awaken. Societies for the prevention of ve- 
nereal disease are springing up everywhere. 
The press and the pulpit are gradually giving 
up their reticence and are turning their atten- 
tion to sex reforms. It is not now considered 
so improper to teach hygienic truths to boys or 
to warn innocent young women of the 'pitfalls 
of the world as it was a few years ago. Think- 
ing persons are beginning to realize that these 
questions are of the deepest vital importance 
to the race, that they not only involve the liv- 
ing but that the fate of a large per cent, of the 
next generation depends on what we do regard- 
ing them now. 
This problem will be solved just as the 
liquor problem is being solved through educa- 
tion. The remarkable victories won during 
the past few years for local option and state- 
wide prohibition have been made possible only 
through the molding of public opinion by edu- 88 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
cation in favor of total abstinence for all. 
Laws are useless unless public sentiment stands 
behind those laws. Public sentiment is grow- 
ing so rapidly that the Government will soon 
take a hand in controlling the spread of social 
disease. Chapter VI 
UNWHOLESOME SOCIAL 
STANDARDS AND DISEASE Chapter VI 
UNWHOLESOME SOCIAL 
STANDARDS AND DISEASE 
THEN we see about us so much suffer- 
' ' ing, so many diseased, maimed and 
blind children, resulting directly from false so- 
cial conditions upon which looseness of morals 
thrive, the question naturally presents itself, 
how can this terrible state of affairs be 
changed ? When the waters of the Mississippi 
break through the levees and go tearing across 
the marshes the settlers turn their attention to 
the dykes. It would be a hopeless policy to 
attempt the restraint of the oncoming floods 
while the breech remains open. It requires no 
argument to make a settler behind the levees 
understand that he must get at the source of 
the onrushing flood if his home is to be saved. 
Social reformers have usually directed their 
91 92 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
attention to repairing the ruins of society with- 
out seeming to give a thought to the great 
causes which bring about the devastation. 
They seem to forget that prostitution, like pov- 
erty and murder, is the direct results of "man's 
inhumanity to man." They have never seemed 
to realize that this blot on the civilization of 
the world will last until the conditions which 
brought it into existence are remedied. 
We hear much of Western civilization. If 
we investigate we will find prostitution to be its 
handmaid. This institution has never existed 
among barbarous people. In Europe it was 
produced by the civilization of Rome. Its 
ranks were kept full by the slave women who 
were captured from the barbarians during the 
Roman wars of conquest. For centuries the 
civilized Roman glutted his vicious impulses 
with barbarian women. These slave women 
and their posterity, kept down by never-chang- 
ing class hatred, became the great demoralized 
element in Roman society. The presence of so 
many slave women in the empire made it unde- Unwholesome, Social Standards 
93 
sirable to sacrifice free women to the national 
vice. If a free woman did fall she was rele- 
gated to slave quarters and lost her property as 
well as the control of her children. 
The idea of chastity for the male never en- 
tered into the Roman mind. The brothel was 
considered essential to the integrity of the fam- 
ily. For this reason it was built and provided 
for at public expense. At the time when the 
canker of vice ate deepest into the vitals of 
Rome, money was voted to bring more women 
from abroad with which to fill these brothels. 
Society in all parts of Europe had by this time 
become contaminated. Roman example had 
infused its demoralization into every civilized 
country, where it still lives and thrives. After 
all, to what degree has our civilization civilized ? 
As long as medieval precedent is followed, 
as long as the double standard of morals lasts, 
as long as sex ignorance reigns supreme, as 
long as weak and dependent women are ground 
down by conditions over which they have no 
control, prostitution will grow and flourish like 94 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
a green bay tree. All efforts directed toward 
the control of this evil have always centered 
about the fallen woman. For centuries she 
was imprisoned, fined, flogged and even 
burned, but the ranks of her trade remain full 
to overflowing. The remedy, the only remedy, 
lies in eliminating the causes which have pro- 
duced her. To use the homely proverb, we 
should not longer continue to lock the door 
after the horse has been stolen. The mistaken 
though well-meaning moralist must realize this 
and act accordingly before this foul stain can 
be removed. Efforts to crush out prostitution 
by hounding poor unfortunate women always 
have and always will end in dismal failure. 
When the world realizes this, this monster of 
society, with its attendant disease and misery, 
may more readily be subdued. 
One of the greatest factors in promoting 
prostitution may be found in the unequal 
standard of morals which governs the sexes. 
The double sex standard has been handed down 
to us by tradition. Sexual intemperance Unwholesome Social Standards 
95 
among men was acquired and became a fixed 
habit at a time, long before the dawn of history, 
when man held women as his property. We 
can readily see, then, how the double standard 
is directly the result of this authority of man 
imposed upon women, an authority due, as a 
matter of course, to a superior physical 
strength. Our modern marriage customs are 
but offshoots from the practices of our savage 
forefathers. The conventional "best man" of 
to-day had his origin at a time when the primi- 
tive groom was compelled to capture his wife 
and flee with her, the feat being accomplished 
with the aid of a trusted friend who helped beat 
off pursuers. This custom still remains with 
us in the modern honeymoon. 
At a later time the bride became, through 
purchase, the property of the man. The pur- 
chase was made by the groom, assisted by his 
friends, who helped make up the deficit, and 
this has been handed down to us in the modern 
custom of making presents before the wedding. 
The very wedding ring worn by the bride of 96 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
to-day is what remains of the copper band 
which was a token of the wife's humiliation and 
servitude. 
In some parts of the world women still re- 
main practically the property of the man. 
Even in England to-day a man may bring a 
run-away wife back to his home and according 
to the law "reprove her." But ideas are chang- 
ing. We have but to examine the statutes of 
one of our original thirteen States, which 
esteemed itself as woman's champion by enact- 
ing a law that the husband must not beat the 
wife with a stick larger than his thumb, to see 
evidence of this change. 
With woman as the property of the man he 
has demanded that she be chaste. A violation 
of this constituted theft from him and has been 
variously punished by death, the whipping post 
and the pillory, according to the age in which 
he lived. It has taken countless generations of 
experience to convince even a small per cent, of 
the male inhabitants of the globe that special 
privilege in sex relations is pernicious. Mil- Unwholesome Social Standards 
97 
lions of men still contend that a double stand- 
ard of morals is necessary. This argument 
comes, not as one might think, from the degen- 
erates and ruffians but from the predominant 
male elements in society. 
A great many men, it may be honest men, 
believe that man is necessarily polygamous by 
nature and must remain so because other ani- 
mal species are found to have polygamous tend- 
encies. This is a puny argument. It may 
be that in his primitive state man was polyga- 
mous. It is also probable that he destroyed 
every male creature of his specie that was not 
necessary to his own existence. I do not sup- 
pose that the most ardent advocate of the 
double standard would uphold such a pro- 
cedure now. 
It does not seem to me that the morals of 
the cave man should be held up as a criterion 
to us of this age of civilized enlightenment. 
Why should we emulate his morals more than 
we adhere to his methods of living? In the 
British Museum are to be seen the kitchen mit- 98 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
tens of these primitive ancestors. These are 
composed of bones, refuse and worn-out imple- 
ments which, trampled into the earth through 
ages, have formed a layer sometimes to the 
thickness of several feet. How would it do for 
us to pattern our homes after the habitation of 
these ancestors? Would it not be as sensible 
for us to do this as it is to pattern our morals 
after theirs? 
This inherited idea is slowly but surely being 
abolished through a process of education. Our 
coming generations, influenced by education 
propaganda will gradually give up the in- 
herited idea that such a double standard is nec- 
essary to civilization. History proves that 
wonderful reforms in national thought may 
occur in a comparatively brief space of time. 
During George Ill's reign in England one 
hundred and sixty different crimes were pun- 
ishable with death. Man's nature at that time 
demanded such a criminal code. Now, accord- 
ing to Alymer Maude, it is often impossible to Unwholesome. Social Standards 
99 
find in England a hang-man for the crime of 
murder. 
Influenced by education the world will be- 
come to recognize with Dr. Maude Glasgow 
that "a sexual intemperance which murders 
infants born and unborn, which destroys the 
procreative capacity in both sexes, which 
breaks up homes, which leads to divorce, which 
destroys efficiency, and shortens the expecta- 
tion of life, cannot be tolerated." 
It will not do to say that man's animal 
tendencies must be gratified because they are 
inherent in all animal creation. Man's respon- 
sibility increases as the breach between himself 
and the animal increases. Man, of all animals, 
has the power of will. Dr. W. F. Thompson, 
a distinguished psychologist, says, "Human re- 
sponsibility, on account of man's possession of 
a virtually all-controlling will, if he chooses to 
exercise it, is such an unwelcome doctrine to 
many reasoners that every effort has been made 
to disprove the freedom of the will" and in 100 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
speaking of the will "there is a central power in 
every man which is stronger than impulse." 
No one will deny that many of our ideas of 
right and wrong were formed for us by our 
predecessors. They are not original with us. 
Young men learn from older men the conven- 
tional idea that chastity is not to be expected of 
the male, and this pernicious attitude of his 
associates blunts his moral sensibilities and in- 
fluences him so far that he often takes a pride 
in his sexual perversities. 
There are already in this country a large 
number of societies which have been organized 
with a view to correcting this mistaken idea. 
The following resolutions presented by the 
American Federation of Sex Hygiene to the 
House of Delegates of the American Medical 
Association is a fair illustration of the character 
of these organizations. 
"Whereas, the necessity daily appears more 
imperative of protecting innocent American 
women and children against infection by the 
social diseases, syphilis and gonorrhea; and, Unwholesome Social Standards 
101 
"Whereas, there is ample evidence of a belief 
deeply grounded among the laity that sexual 
indulgence is necessary to the health of the nor- 
mal man; and, 
"Whereas, there exist in consequence widely 
differing and double standards of morals and of 
physical health for the male and female sexes, 
that lead directly to disease and death of 
many of our women and children: 
"Be it resolved, that the American Medical 
Association through its house of delegates, 
hereby present for the instruction and protec- 
tion of the lay public the unqualified declara- 
tion that illicit sexual intercourse is not only 
unnecessary to health, but that its direct conse- 
quence in terms of infectious disease constitutes 
a grave menace to the physical integrity of 
the individual and of the nation." 
These resolutions were drawn up not because 
a controversy exists among the well-informed 
members of society, or in the medical profes- 
sion, but for the express purpose of removing 
from young men's minds the long harbored 102 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
fallacy that sexual indulgence is necessary to 
health. 
We cannot expect a change in existing social 
conditions until the canker of the dual standard 
of morality, with all its reflected sorrow, is 
removed. Society accepts this preposterous 
condition only because society thinks conven- 
tionally, a conventionality devoid of all logical 
rules. The average person has not the courage 
to look stern realities in the face. As an ex- 
ample, why are people so careless about the 
morals of the young men whom they admit to 
their homes? About all that is required of a 
young man, nowadays, before he is admitted to 
the most select circles is that his parents have 
position or money and that his manners are de- 
corous. If these requisites come up to the 
standard his character will seldom be chal- 
lenged. 
It is true, also, that young men who enter 
our best homes socially are not infrequently 
moral perverts who would boast of wrecking a 
woman's honor. Does not a father, by putting Unwholesome Social Standards 
103 
a profligate upon a social equal with his daugh- 
ter, give sanction to the double standard? In- 
iquity and integrity are not usually found stalk- 
ing about the world together; and the associa- 
tion of a roue, however polished his exterior, 
with a young woman, cannot do otherwise than 
result in lowering her moral standards. How 
careless of moral consequences has convention 
made the average parent. 
By virtue of educational propaganda the 
double standard of ethics is hopelessly doomed 
says Dr. Martin. "It was, from the begin- 
ning, rooted in injustice and founded on male 
domination. It is the asserted will of the slave 
owner and cannot stand in an age of growing 
recognition of equal rights." Chapter VII 
THE OUNCE OF PREVENTION Chapter VII 
THE OUNCE OF PREVENTION 
IN the preceding chapters we have attempted 
to show to what an extent sex ignorance is 
responsible for much of the moral perversion 
of to-day. Not only among the young, but 
among the fathers and mothers to whom the 
child naturally looks for guidance, this igno- 
rance is paramount. Education is the great 
remedy for sex evils. A problem arises then: 
who are the proper persons to promote educa- 
tion along these lines? This is a momentous 
question. The parent is the natural teacher 
of the off-spring but many parents have not 
sufficient instructions along these lines to be 
able satisfactorily to teach their children. It 
seems to me that it would be practicable to 
teach this subject in schools, the instructor to 
be especially educated along these lines. Such 
107 108 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
instructions would prevent much suffering and 
to the State would be of vast economic value. 
Every mother should seek to enjoy the clos- 
est confidence of her growing girl. The many 
perplexing questions which come up in her 
young mind should be explained to her. It is 
natural for the girl to ask questions during the 
adolescent period. At all times, in all parts of 
the world mankind has always asked, is still 
asking, "from whence came we?" This is one 
of the first questions which perplexes the mind 
of the maturing young woman and it is as nat- 
ural to her as the air she breathes. 
Among the phenomena of nature there is 
none more important to the world than this 
divine function of procreation. It is the source 
of all life, in the animal as well as in the vege- 
table kingdoms. Without it life would dimin- 
ish into nothingness and the purpose of the 
Creator would be thwarted. All about us we 
see nature in her perpetual work of reproduc- 
tion. Surely there can be nothing immodest 
in teaching a boy or girl that, as from a seed The Ounce of Prevention 
109 
hid in the ground comes the matured plant, so 
from the union of cells with their wonderful 
power of multiplication a new being, the child, 
is brought into the world. 
It is very well to protect the sweet innocence 
of girlhood yet, during the period of transition 
from childhood to womanhood, this innocence, 
with all its beauty, is fraught with grave dan- 
ger. The girl's first thrills of romance, which 
are natural and wholesome in themselves, are 
accompanied by the consciousness of a newly 
awakened instinct which demands explanation. 
During this period, if she is not guided by the 
wise council of some intelligent woman, much 
harm may result. A heart to heart talk from 
the mother, or the teacher, at this time, would 
satisfy this natural desire to understand things 
which perplex her, and would prevent her from 
getting this information from what often 
proves to be unfortunate sources. Would it 
not be better to explain to her the mysteries of 
her sex, the meaning and the purpose of the 
function of motherhood, than to have her learn 110 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
this clandestinely, intermingled with informa- 
tion regarding things she should not know? 
The prudery of mothers who have failed to do 
their duty by their daughters has often resulted 
in the missteps which are invariably followed 
by untold suffering and humiliation. 
The mother who will rebuke her daughter for 
seeking to find out "immodest things" is apt to 
lose her confidence entirely, so that when other 
questions of, vital interest to her welfare creep 
into her mind she will be very likely to go else- 
where for the knowledge she desires. How im- 
portant it is then that the mother should retain 
the daughter's confidence by open truthfulness 
so she will not be driven to clandestine sources 
where she will get the desired information 
mingled, perhaps, with vulgarity. 
The girl should not only be taught to honor 
and respect moral worth where found in the 
young man but the perils of venereal disease 
should be made known to her. This kind of 
instruction is of more value to her than all the 
higher mathematics. With venereal disease so The Ounce of Prevention 
111 
prevalent, and with the probability that she will 
soon be selecting a husband, she is entitled to 
this information for the protection not only of 
herself, but of her child. How potent are the 
words of Dr. Edgbert who says "Education lies 
at the bottom of the whole thing and we will 
never gain much headway until every young 
man, and every young woman, even before she 
falls in love and is engaged, knows what these 
diseases are and what it will mean if she marries 
a man who has contracted them." How can 
we expect an unsophisticated girl to avoid a 
danger if she is not conscious that it exists ? 
Many a girl is led into entangling alliances 
with young men, alliances which she would have 
scrupulously avoided if she had been taught 
what such an experience would have meant to 
her in the way of disease and suffering. The 
stain that cannot be erased is nearly always due 
to ignorance. "All that love and solicitous 
parental yearning can bestow, all that the most 
refined religions can offer, all that the most 
cultured sociation can accomplish in one fatal 112 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
moment can be obliterated," says Dr. Buckley, 
"and this fatal moment is usually a direct result 
of either the ignorance or willful neglect of the 
parents." 
It is imperative that the boy before adoles- 
cence should receive sex lessons. The honest 
and well-informed father will take his boy 
into his confidence and unfold to him the sacred 
truths relating to the physiology of his sexual 
organs and their purpose in the divine process 
of reproduction. He will teach him by word 
and precept that the boy who condones loose 
morals kills the highest instincts of his nature, 
that immorality of any kind cannot be indulged 
in without mental and physical harm, that the 
stain of immorality is often the basis of a 
wrecked nervous system and that the life which 
is impure carries a record upon the countenance 
as unmistakable as if written upon marble. 
He will explain to him how continence is evi- 
dence of self-control and that without self- 
control success in any line of human endeavor 
is not likely to be obtained; that continence The Ounce of Prevention 
113 
strengthens character and that character is the 
greatest step toward achievement of any kind. 
He will also give him instructions regarding 
the disastrous and debasing experiences which 
come with wild oats, how these experiences 
bring with them consequences of physical retri- 
bution which will follow him through life, dis- 
ease, untold suffering, remorse and even death. 
The father who is capable of imparting this in- 
struction to his son and who shirks this duty is 
very imperfectly discharging his paternal obli- 
gations. 
In the question of morals the religious in- 
stitutions of the country are making the great- 
est fight in their history. For centuries they 
have led the march against evil in all its forms 
and are now keenly alive to the responsibilities 
which changed conditions of the modern age 
have forced upon them. Already they are con- 
templating the feasibility of creating within 
their walls great social centers. A movement 
with this end in view is now being given a trial 
in some cities with much promise for good. 114 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
Think what it would mean to the morality of 
the nation if the property of its religious or- 
ganizations, recently estimated at $2,000,000,- 
000 could be used for this purpose and if even a 
fractional per cent, of its 45,000,000 members 
would become active in the work. 
There are millions of young people in this 
country who are not reached in any manner by 
religious influence. The intoxication of young 
life keeps these in perpetual pursuit of pleas- 
ure. Nor is this of itself unwholesome or un- 
natural. The desire for joy is normal and in- 
herent in the young. Joy, when directed into 
proper channels, benefits character and re- 
freshes the mind. Its tendency is to improve 
and to strengthen rather than to deteriorate. 
Society has made no adequate provision for 
this natural craving of young life. The places 
which fill this longing for pleasure are often of 
a low moral tone. Many of them are danger- 
ous to the extreme. Every night in the week 
thousands upon thousands of young people re- 
sort to saloons, public dance halls and cheap The Ounce oe Prevention 
115 
theaters, seeking forgetfulness of the daily 
drudgery which our economic conditions too 
often impose upon them. Many frequent such 
places because of sheer loneliness and because 
they believe that no other place is open to them. 
Stealthily, gradually, the evil influence of such 
places exerts itself, and one by one these young 
people are drawn down into the undertow. 
What an opportunity for good is presented 
by this fact. During the evenings of the week 
if the doors of churches and synagogues were 
open to these people; if they could go there and 
be greeted by an atmosphere of congeniality 
and a chance to enjoy themselves, thousands 
would take advantage of the opportunity and 
a great fight for good morals would be won. 
The majority of religious edifices stand cold 
and lifeless for five or six evenings a week. 
Would it not be well to make of them, during 
these evenings, great centers of social and in- 
tellectual diversion? Could they not, at mod- 
erate expense, be fitted with gymnasiums and 
club rooms? How perfect are their arrange- 116 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
ments already for concert and lecture work! 
Would they not as centers for study classes, 
motherhood and domestic science schools do 
an immeasurable amount of good? A pro- 
gram such as this will one day be carried out 
and when that day comes the "outposts" of so- 
ciety which have been held with so much dif- 
ficulty during recent years will develop into 
great moral and social fortifications, humanity 
will turn over the soiled page and a new his- 
tory of the world's morals will be begun. Chapter VIII 
THE FRANCHISE FOR WOMEN AND 
ITS RELATION TO SOCIAL 
REFORM Chapter VIII 
THE FRANCHISE FOR WOMEN AND 
ITS RELATION TO SOCIAL 
REFORM 
f | most promising factors relative to the 
world's morality is the unrest exhibited 
by women regarding conditions which, from 
time immemorial, have been imposed upon 
them by men. For thousands of years woman 
has been sacrificed upon the altar of man's self- 
ishness. She has been governed by conven- 
tions which, upon every hand, have retarded 
her development. In having to submit to mar- 
riage proposed by man and governed largely 
by his buying power she has given counte- 
nance to a system which, in many cases, has 
amounted to the literal exchange of herself for 
material goods. By being deprived of free 
choice in the selection of her mate both she 
119 120 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
and her husband have lost the mutual love and 
mutual fellowship which belongs rightly to 
marriage. Traditions which have been handed 
down for centuries have deprived her of her 
birthright and have made her little more than 
a child-bearing machine. She has been en- 
snared by economic conditions which have 
caused her, in millions of cases, to denounce 
motherhood, that crowning bliss and God-giv- 
ing right of a woman's life. 
For centuries all Christendom has frowned 
upon her higher education. It has denied her 
intellectual equality with man. It has con- 
tended that education would rob her of the 
womanly qualification necessary to her function 
of motherhood, and in every way has closed the 
door to her superior resourcefulness. But the 
old ideas are dying and new ones, which are 
self-assertive, are being born. 
There are now over forty thousand women 
students in the co-educational colleges and uni- 
versities of the United States and many thou- 
sands more are to be found in colleges devoted The Franchise for Women 
121 
exclusively to woman's higher education. The 
advantages gained for women by higher educa- 
tion have paved the way for their entrance into 
the various professions. Thousands of them 
are now taking courses in medicine, theology 
and law, and, working side by side with men, 
they have, by the excellence of their class stand- 
ards, forever refuted the traditions of woman's 
intellectual inferiority. 
If we take a casual survey of the various 
movements which have had as their purpose 
the abolition of wrong in any of its forms we 
will find there the work of woman preeminent. 
Who has done more for temperance than has 
Frances Willard; for the white slave than has 
Jane Addams; for the sick poor than has Clara 
Barton; for the immigrant than has Mary 
Anton or for the mistreated child than has Mrs. 
Browning? 
Let us look at the attitude of the world to- 
ward the child one hundred years ago. The 
following from the pen of Sir Surrell Wallace 
will give us some idea of that attitude. "Our 122 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
vast textile factory system may be said to have 
commenced with the nineteenth century, and 
the profits were at first so large and so de- 
pendent on the supply of labor that the mill 
owners hired children from the work houses 
of the great cities by hundreds and even thou- 
sands. These children from the age of five or 
six upward were taken as apprentices for seven 
years, and they really became the slaves of the 
manufacturers, whose managers made them 
work from six a. m. to seven p. m., and some- 
times longer, and in order to keep them awake 
in the close atmosphere of the factories it was 
found necessary to whip them at frequent in- 
tervals." 
These were the conditions which inspired 
Mrs. Browning to write her immortal verses 
"The Cry of the Children." For twenty cen- 
turies no great voice had been raised in the 
child's behalf. No one had seemed to discover 
that ill-treatment of children was immoral, in- 
human and degrading. She was childhood's 
first great champion of modern times. To The Franchise for Women 
123 
such an extent did her verses soften the in- 
dustrial heart of England that the child labor 
system, with its associated cruelty, fell imme- 
diately into disfavor. Soon factory acts were 
being passed, hours were being shortened and 
age limits imposed. To-day in our societies for 
the regulation of child labor, from the courts 
and legislatures that have ameliorated and 
are seeking further to lighten the burdens of 
children, in our cotton factories and mills we 
hear the echo of the voice of this woman who 
blazed the trail for reform by so fearlessly 
grappling with the public sentiment of the last 
century. 
The world's attitude toward the sphere of 
woman is but another illustration of inherited 
convention. A few brave women have dared 
scale the formerly insurmountable barriers of 
this convention and for their courage human- 
ity has been immensely benefited. Florence 
Nightingale, by overriding conventional ideas, 
became one of the greatest of the world's bene- 
factors. The jibes of the London press which 124 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
stripped her of a claim to "true womanliness" 
and "lady-like deportment" because she chose 
to violate conventions by going to "nurse com- 
mon soldiers" was answered with a devotion to 
her work which not only made possible modern 
nursing but saved the lives of thousands. Clara 
Barton following in her footsteps gave to the 
world the red cross nurses who to-day are sav- 
ing life on almost as gigantic a scale as the 
crowned heads are destroying it. 
If women have accomplished so much for 
reform without the franchise how immeasurably 
greater will be their privilege for good with 
the vote at their command. Then every woman 
will be a cog working for the effectiveness of 
the great social machine. 
The idea that woman will never be able to 
cast an intelligent vote is slowly but surely dis- 
appearing from thinking minds. From every 
section of the globe that has given woman the 
electoral franchise comes the refutation of this 
time-worn contention. Observe what the con- 
sciousness of her responsibility, her good sense The Franchise for Women 
125 
and her vote, have done for morals and for 
good government in the little country of New 
Zealand. Lady Stout in her little work 
"Woman's Suffrage in New Zealand" says: 
"The moral tone of the community is on a much 
higher level than before suffrage. The illegiti- 
mate birth rate has been decreased. The sense 
of justice which prevails and which insists upon 
the punishment of the guilty party instead of 
the victim in cases of seduction has retained a 
high level. There are many cases in which the 
voice of honest indignation has been raised 
against the man whose neglect and selfishness 
has driven a shamed and hunted girl to des- 
peration, which clearly proves that the tone of 
morality has been raised and the sense of jus- 
tice aroused in men as well as women." 
Women have been the first to learn that, in 
order to elevate morals, the beginning is the 
place to begin. They have worked for years 
to establish a woman's police system for the 
protection of young girls. These efforts have 
borne fruit in three States already and pros- 126 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
pects for their institution in other States are 
very promising. Women are now seeking to 
abolish the public dance hall. These women 
do not mean that the joy of young life which 
seeks natural expression in play must be sup- 
pressed. They appreciate the necessity of pro- 
viding the young with innocent, well-censored 
amusement, and the futility of attempting to 
destroy the inherent craving for pleasure which 
is natural to youth. Through the efforts of 
the women of New York City a number of 
social centers with attractive amusement have 
been established near public dance halls which, 
by decreasing their patronage, have been the 
cause of closing more than one of these danger- 
ous places. 
Women take the attitude that pleasure for 
the young is essential and must exist but that 
the league between it and vice must be de- 
stroyed. And this league is being destroyed 
slowly but surely by numberless movements 
with women always in the foremost ranks. 
From the efforts of a number of Chicago The Franchise for Women 
127 
women who demanded that children of ten and 
twelve should not be locked up with hardened 
criminals was bom the Juvenile Court. Again 
women have begun at the beginning. Now Ju- 
venile Courts all over the country are keeping 
children out of the jails, one of the greatest 
vice schools to be found. 
"The New York Committee on Amusement 
and Vacation Resources of Working Girls" 
drew up a bill which passed the legislature in 
1909. This bill prohibited the sale of liquor in 
public dance halls. It also made the proprie- 
tors of such places responsible for indecent 
dancing and bad behavior. This bill tolled the 
knell of the saloon dance hall. 
The children's play ground movement is es- 
sentially a woman's movement. From every 
city of any size in the country the play grounds 
are taking dirty, stunted children out of squalid 
streets and alleys, where they become veritable 
prodigies in crime and vice, and are teaching 
them how to play wholesomely. 
What activities women have displayed in 128 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
other movements to care for the child and to 
protect motherhood! How diligent they have 
been in directing education into the proper 
channels; in promoting sanitation and in im- 
proving public welfare generally! 
The work of woman has always been guided 
by an altruism which in degree is foreign to 
man's nature. For this reason they are fitted 
to cope with the commercialized vice question as 
men have never coped with it. The vice cru- 
sades of the country have always had men at 
their head. These men, though honest and sin- 
cere, have not always followed methods which 
are practical. Very frequently the work when 
only begun is put entirely into the hands of the 
police. When this is done, very little good is 
accomplished because the prodigal woman is 
notoriously migratory in her habits, and the 
police simply increase this tendency. Few 
women have ever been reclaimed by society 
through police efforts. On the contrary, they 
are often driven so deep into degradation that 
moral regeneration is made impossible. The Franchise for Women 
129 
In handling questions of a moral nature, 
women have been more original and practical 
than men have been. Their work based on the 
maxim that "An ounce of prevention is worth 
a pound of cure" has been directed toward pre- 
venting delinquency. As an illustration: A 
number of women in New York had introduced 
before the New York Legislature a bill known 
as "The Mercantile Employees Bill." This 
was intended to regulate the employment of 
women and children in the Mercantile Estab- 
lishments throughout the State. After four 
years hard work they succeeded in getting it 
through the Lower House and placing it before 
the Senate. The Senate, in spite of strenuous 
commercial influence, appointed the "Rhein- 
hard Commission" to investigate conditions 
among working women in New York City. 
This Commission reported that some merchants 
were employing grown women at thirty-three 
cents a day and that they found many children 
of eleven and twelve years at cash desks and 
wrapping tables. They unearthed a system of 130 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
fines in a number of stores which took away, in 
many cases, almost the entire amount of the 
girls' weekly earnings. Now what does thirty- 
three cents per day mean to a girl in New York 
City? Simply that she must sell herself or 
starve. And what incentive for virtue has the 
poor tired girl who has been robbed of her 
wages? What real good can be accomplished 
by Vice Commissions while such conditions ex- 
ist? The women's bill passed the Senate, after 
much opposition, and it stands to-day the great- 
est factor in protecting the morals of women 
that the State of New York has ever had. 
Women have always been inherently more 
moral than men. Their fight against the "Con- 
tagious Disease Prevention Act" of England 
may be used as an illustration of this moral 
tendency. The Act referred to legalized pros- 
titution in some parts of England and Ireland 
and provided for the cumpulsory examination 
of fallen women. Stirred by the injustice and 
essential immoral tendency of this Act "The 
Metropolitan United Contagious Disease Act The Franchise for Women 
131 
Association" of London, a woman's organiza- 
tion, offered a protest against it. The follow- 
ing reasons for opposing the Act are clear cut 
and logical. 
"Because, so far as women are concerned, 
they (such examinations by the police) remove 
every guarantee of personal security which 
the law has established and held sacred, and 
put their reputation, their freedom, and their 
persons absolutely in the power of the police. 
"Because the law is bound, in any country 
professing to give civil liberty to its subjects, 
to define clearly an offense which it punishes. 
"Because it is unjust to punish the sex who 
are the victims of a vice, and leave unpunished 
the sex who are the main cause, both of the 
vice and its dreaded consequences; and we con- 
sider the liability to arrest, forced surgical ex- 
aminations, and (where this is resisted) im- 
prisonment with hard labor, to which these Acts 
subject women, are punishment of the most de- 
grading kind. 
"Because, by such a system, the path of evil 132 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
is made more easy to our sons, and to the whole 
of the youth of England, inasmuch as a moral 
restraint is withdrawn the moment the State 
recognizes, and provides convenience for, the 
practice of a vice which it thereby declares to 
be necessary and venial. 
"Because these measures are cruel to the 
women who come under their action-violating 
the feelings of those whose sense of shame is not 
wholly lost, and further brutalizing even the 
most abandoned. 
"Because the disease which these Acts seek 
to remove has never been removed by any such 
legislation. The advocates of the system have 
utterly failed to show, by statistics or otherwise 
that these regulations have, in any case, after 
several years' trial, and when applied to one 
sex only, diminished disease, reclaimed the fal- 
len, or improved the general morality of the 
country. We have, on- the contrary, the 
strongest evidence to show that in Paris and 
other Continental cities where women have long 
been outraged by this forced inspection, the The Franchise for Women 
133 
public health and morals are worse than at 
home." 
Through the persistent efforts of this body 
of women England repealed this Act thus re- 
moving a blot from her civilization. 
In the States of Utah, California, Idaho, 
Colorado and Wyoming since men and women 
have had equal political rights there has been 
a decided improvement in the tenor of legisla- 
tion regarding moral questions. The same 
tendency has been manifested in other sections. 
The following list of Acts passed in New Zea- 
land since the advent of equal suffrage indicates 
the moral height which the legislation has 
reached under equal suffrage: "A deserting 
husband or the putative father of an expected 
illegitimate child may be prevented from leav- 
ing the country." "The Criminal Amendment 
Act insuring adequate punishment for sexual 
offenses from five years to life imprisonment, 
is given according to the seriousness of the of- 
fense and the age of the victim." 
"The Indecent Publication Act" is used to 134 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
suppress indecent pictures and immoral litera- 
ture and plays. "The 'Divorce Act' makes the 
conditions for divorce equal for both sexes. In 
it there is a provision by which in the case of a 
husband suing for divorce, if it is proved that 
his unfaithfulness had driven the wife to a simi- 
lar act, the divorce can be refused. In the case 
of the wife suing for divorce the same rule ap- 
plies." "The 'Legitimation Act' is similar to 
the Act in Scotland by which the child may be 
legitimized on the marriage of the parents and 
receive equal shares in property, equal rights 
and the status of a legitimate child. Provision 
is made for distribution of the estates of illegiti- 
mate children to the mother and her relatives 
to the exclusion of the father and his relatives. 
Illegitimate children can be registered in the 
name of the father. There are many other 
Acts which safeguard the lives and well-being 
of children." 
The influence of women in civic, economic, 
social and moral affairs has its full value only 
when she enjoys the right of franchise. That The Franchise for Women 
135 
social progress is steadily on the advance in 
countries where women vote is self-evident. 
We have already made reference to the estab- 
lishment of hospitals in Finland and Sweden 
for the control of venereal disease through com- 
pulsory treatment, and it is well to note here 
that in these countries women have equal suf- 
frage rights with men. Chapter IX 
THE PROMISE OF ECONOMIC 
RESPONSIVENESS Chapter IX 
THE PROMISE OF ECONOMIC 
RESPONSIVENESS 
THE economic question regarding the pro- 
duction of vice by poverty is the world's 
most stupendous barrier against reform. No 
one has been able to offer a panacea for this 
evil. Economic reforms have always been 
made slowly, are still made slowly, because of 
the opposition to such reforms by the powers 
which control money. If this wall could be 
scaled the greater part of the poverty which 
now grips humanity, with all the evils attending 
it, would die a natural death. 
In every city of the world are to be seen the 
greatest extremes of penury and wealth. On 
the one hand are the palatial residences of the 
rich and on the other the tenements of the 
slums, dark, musty rookeries which breed and 
139 140 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
harbor disease. The luxury of the millionaire 
flaunts itself in the face of the mendicant. The 
children of the wealthy, tired of the colleges 
and universities, go abroad for study and recre- 
ation, while the children of the poor, forced out 
of school after a year or two, toil at dismal 
tasks, often in damp and pestilential rooms. 
Their, young women, who by appropriate liv- 
ing should be fitting themselves for Mother- 
hood are wearing their lives out in the stores 
and factories, and forever destroying that God 
given function. 
The sons of the poor, by unwholesome en- 
vironment, are being schooled in the ways of 
vice and crime. In the presence of such ex- 
amples of squalor and deprivation which attend 
the poverty-stricken people of our cities what 
claim for surprise have we at the declaration of 
Wallace, "Taking account of these various 
groups of undoubted facts," he writes, "many 
of which are so gross, so terrible, that they can- 
not be overstated, it is not too much to say that 
our whole system of society is rotten from top The Promise of Economic Responsiveness 
141 
to bottom, and the Social Environment as a 
whole, in relation to our possibilities and our 
claims, is the worst that the world has ever 
seen." 
"Whatever is the best." Does the thought- 
ful person longer agree with Pope ? Are con- 
ditions best which make the breadlines? Are 
conditions best which rob the mothers in the 
slums of every other child born into this world, 
which make the homes of the poor veritable 
breeing places of disease, of vice, of crime? 
Upon the one hand we claim that every one has 
a right to surroundings which promote health, 
and on the other we create and sustain by law, 
conditions which make healthful living impos- 
sible. 
The person who claims that our economic 
conditions are as good as can be made, to whom 
everything seems best, is like the proverbial 
ostrich that buries its head in the sand. To 
shut ones eyes to social wrongs does not, in the 
least, make these wrongs less existent. 
But are we not a generous people in our con- 142 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
tributions to charity? Yes, and is it not a dis- 
grace to uphold a system of affairs which makes 
demands upon charity so imperative? Do we 
not maintain, at great cost, hospitals for the 
afflicted poor, and homes for the unfortunate? 
Yes, and then by social conditions of the crud- 
est kind we proceed to crowd to overflowing 
these homes and hospitals. 
That there is something radically wrong 
somewhere is self-evident. And how is this to 
be changed? In the past century many men, 
several of them of giant intellect, and all with 
souls burning for the redress of the wrongs 
about them, have devoted their lives to the solu- 
tion of this problem. 
We find Herbert Spencer declaring that 
"Equality does not permit property in land" 
and that to get rid of individual ownership 
"The change required would simply be a change 
of landlords. Separate ownership would 
merge into the joint stock ownership of the 
public. Instead of being in the possession of 
individuals the country would be held by the The Promise of Economic Responsiveness 
143 
great corporate body-Society." "A state of 
things so ordered would be in perfect harmony 
with the moral law. Under it all men would 
be equally landlords." 
We see Malthus advancing the theory that 
population, when unchecked, increases at a 
higher ratio than the means of sustenance can 
increase, the ultimate result of this being mis- 
ery, moral depravity and crime. 
Here is Henry George spending the best 
years of his life deploring "Over production" 
and our protection of labor-saving devices by 
patent, while denouncing a social short-sighted- 
ness which levies taxes on improvements, which 
gives land titles to the few and molds the re- 
mainder with great working, criminal and pau- 
per classes. 
We hear Alfred Russel Wallace crying out 
against "Economic Antagonism" and a system 
of "Justice" which makes of poverty a crime, 
and puts a premium on dishonor; against a 
form of social wrong which breeds pauperism, 
starvation, preventable disease and death, and 144 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
utterly "demoralizes mankind." And again we 
find Tolstoy condemning laws as, not the will 
of the people, but a system of organized vio- 
lence, effective only in making serfs and slaves. 
Bolton Hall of New York would abolish all 
charity because it fosters idleness and improvi- 
dence, destroys self-reliance and, by congesting 
the cities with families who should be develop- 
ing rural districts, creates destitution, disease 
and crime. 
Dreamers? Yes, but the world's greatest 
benefactors have been men who had dreams and 
who dared to make the attempt to execute 
them. If we turn over the pages of history the 
events of the world pass before us like a great 
procession of crime. The annals which are 
handed down to us deal almost entirely with 
conquest, carnage, intrigue, brutality and the 
suppression of human rights. With these 
weapons kingdoms came into existence, the 
chief actors in which, by being steeped in im- 
morality and self indulgence, degenerated to a 
point where their weakness made them a prey The Promise of Economic Responsiveness 
145 
to the same weapons which gave them power. 
And thus the stage was set for a repetition of 
brutal acts with 
"Truth forever on the scaffold, 
Wrong forever on the throne." 
For centuries man had not the right to utter 
a word in behalf of down trodden humanity. 
A single expression of an honest conviction in 
their behalf meant prison or the scaffold. In 
the old castles of Europe are still to be seen 
the dungeons where so many men rotted alive 
for personal convictions which were not popu- 
lar. In these same castles men, more animal 
than human, received salaries for inflicting tor- 
tures on their fellow men. Their ingenuity 
was exerted only in inventing instruments to 
produce pain. Humanity was made up of ty- 
rants, hordes of cringing, fawning, groveling 
slaves and a few brave men who dared to ex- 
press their honest thoughts. The ghastly nar- 
rative, which we dignify with the name of his- 
tory, is illumined only by records of the lives 146 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
of the dreamers, the reformers. But for them 
the human conscience would have died, the 
flame would have burned out on the altar of 
liberty and mankind would have lost its chief 
impetus in the great search for the right. 
Cooper in his matchless stories of pioneer life 
describes the Indian scout as he leads a group 
of settlers into the wilderness. He is often 
miles ahead of his party. He is blazing the 
trail. A twig is broken here, a stone over- 
turned there and a moccasin track marks the 
place where he crosses the stream. The path- 
finder follows and soon the plains are seen to 
smile with the green fields of the homesteader. 
An occasional break in the forest is seen, a 
clearing has been made, a home started. These 
blazed trails developed into roads for pack- 
horses, pack-roads in time became wagon roads, 
and the wagon roads are soon great highways 
into the Western country. Years afterwards 
the surveyors followed these same roads. 
Then came the engineers. The hills were 
blasted, the mountains were tunneled and end- The Promise of Economic Responsiveness 
147 
less threads of steel were laid. Now as the 
tourist sits in his palace car surrounded by the 
conveniences which this age has made possible, 
he does so only through virtue of the labor of 
those brave and intrepid explorers, who 
smiled at danger, overcame all obstacles and 
carried the settlers into a new world. In the 
same way, the great army of reformers from 
St. Paul to Henry George have blazed every 
mile of the trail over which humanity, with 
painful steps, has groped for over two thou- 
sand years. 
They have put on the wing the spirit of eco- 
nomic reform. They have taught man that he 
cannot enslave his fellows and remain free him- 
self. Through them he is discovering that he 
cannot dwarf the lives of others without his 
own life becoming dwarfed and calloused. 
The suffering of the working classes resulting 
from industrial oppression is a matter which 
no longer concerns only them. It has become 
every one's concern. Society in its efforts at 
reform strikes at the intolerable conditions of 148 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
the poor because as a body it is hampered by 
these conditions. Guided by the influence of 
these men and women, we are learning to make 
the welfare of mankind our ideal and gradually 
we are remodeling our institutions so that all 
lives may be made more wholesome and more 
effective. 
The'success of any reform depends entirely 
upon public opinion or as Lord Macaulay 
says "Upon the Spirit of the Age." This 
spirit of the age is demanding fair play. It 
has never before been as active in mitigating 
economic conditions involving the working 
classes as now. Sir Henry Bannerman the 
recent Prime Minister of England shattered 
all precedents by an appeal to Parhament to 
make England "A treasury house for the poor, 
rather than a mere treasury house for the 
rich." David Lloyd George, when the Euro- 
pean war broke out, was putting into practical 
shape these sentiments by his efforts toward a 
readjustment of taxes upon land held by the 
nobility. The Promise of Economic Responsiveness 
149 
Witness the spirit of the age at work in 
the United States. Henry Ford, before the 
Commission of Industrial Relations, empha- 
sized the practicability of taking all the prison- 
ers out of Sing Sing and making men of them 
by giving them fair play and an honest wage. 
Ford takes the attitude held by many other 
earnest men that a lack of fair treatment 
coupled with industrial slavery has, in the ma- 
jority of cases, been responsible for a crime. 
In every person the desire to do right is in- 
stinctive and when that desire is thwarted, and 
a criminal is made out of a man, the cause in 
many cases may be traced to economic oppres- 
sion, and the environment which such oppres- 
sion creates. With economic justice-a jus- 
tice which would mean living wages, decent 
hours and a better standard of living, crime 
would diminish and most of the cells in the pris- 
ons would stand empty. 
Everywhere about us the spirit of the age has 
made a growing desire for "the square deal." 
Only fifty years ago in our textile factories the 150 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
workers filed in at six in the morning and 
toiled for twelve or fourteen hours a day in 
dimly lighted rooms. The operators were 
often injured because the light was so poor that 
they could not see the machines. Now this is 
all being changed. The spirit of the square 
deal is asserting itself. National and state 
laws have reduced the long hours. The mills 
are well lighted. Nearly all the work is done 
by day, and that necessary to be done at night 
is performed under brilliant illumination. The 
moodiness of night workers resulting from eye- 
strain and headache has disappeared. 
What the public conscience has done for the 
textile workers, it is now doing for the toilers 
in the sweat shops. Thefe nefarious institu- 
tions are being regulated by law, and abuses 
are disappearing under restrictions imposed by 
the legislatures. Child-labor laws are being 
made in many of the States. Already there 
are over a dozen child-labor societies in this 
country. What promise for the future! 
This is not the age of pessimism. Reform is The Promise of Economic Responsiveness 
151 
evolution with results necessarily long de- 
layed. When in Europe the first voices were 
lifted in behalf of the serf living in penury and 
giving up his labor to the feudal lords who 
lived in idle luxury, the task of adjusting so- 
ciety, because the feudal system was ingrafted 
upon it, was considered hopeless, but serfdom 
has now vanished, all tax-free estates have 
gone, and nothing of the feudal system remains 
but our knowledge that it once existed. 
What a debt we owe to the honest thinkers, 
the innovators. But how has humanity been 
benefited by the bewildering maze of thought 
which they have given origin to? Of what use 
to society have been the passionate appeals of 
Henry George and of Karl Marx? What is 
humanity to reap from the logical reasoning of 
Herbert Spencer and the careful deductions of 
Wallace? Is the world to be made any better 
by the self sacrifice and devotion of Tolstoy? 
In spite of all their theories and deductions do 
we not still have human misery? 
Yes, but the work of these men coupled 152 
Social Travesties and What They Cost 
with that of hundreds of other men and women, 
less illustrious but equally sincere, has made 
more resplendent that divinely inherent attri- 
bute of mankind-Justice. It has awakened 
the social conscience, the only medium through 
which justice can become effective. 
The prophet Moses upon the mountain of 
Nebo looked down into the land of all Gilead 
unto Dan, and from Judah to the utmost sea, 
and though the soles of his feet never pressed 
the soil of the promised land, his work has had 
its effect. In every civilized country upon the 
globe his influence has been indelibly fixed and 
will remain so as long as humanity lasts. And 
who can say that the efforts of these prophets 
of the new order have been in vain? Their im- 
print, already so vitally felt, will continue to 
grow and ripen with the years until human 
misery is subdued and industrial slavery, with 
its crime and brutishness and disease will, like 
the feudal system, be but a memory. 
THE END